Allonby to Maryport and return

We'd had a long drive up to Cumbria yesterday and were keen to get out walking. Because we only had one car with us, the plan for walking days later in the holiday was to park the car at one end of our walk and use the train to get to or return from the other end. The Cumbrian Coast Railway chuggs its way from Carlisle to Barrow-in-Furness and beyond, running close to the coast from Maryport to Barrow, but we were north of Maryport, so for today we were planning a "there and back" walk. We weren't expecting the world's most exciting of walks, but we'd have the stunning views across the Solway Firth, and we were hoping to explore Maryport's history, which extends back to Roman times. It was cloudy and not exactly warm (we kept our waterproof jackets on all day) and there were drops of rain from time to time, but it never came to much.

Last night we'd walked the short distance from our lovely holiday cottage in Allonby to the beach and then walked a few hundred metres along the England Coast Path to its current starting point, slightly further north in Allonby. So this morning we just headed south from the cottage, though I couldn't resist the temptation to start by going down to the beach. The low cloud meant that the views across to Scotland weren't great, but it gave us the opportunity to look at the way we'd be walking. The coast gives the appearance of curving round, with a headland in the distance. We hadn't noticed the curve on the local scale of the OS 1:25000 map (partly because we were currently on Outdoor Leisure Sheet 4 which primarily covers the Lake District, but just extends to this section of coast) but it is there. The "headland" we could see was either an inland rise called Swarthy Hill or the hill behind Maryport - or we were seeing further into the distance.

South of Allonby, the England Coast path and Hadrian's Cycleway share a single tarmacked track. Cyclists and runners came past occasionally, but it wasn't a problem. On the approach to Swarthy Hill, the cycleway crosses the road. The map shows the England Coast Path continuing close to the sea, but there was a sign indicating that this route is closed because of storm damage, so we were to continue on the cycleway. Fair enough, though I would have liked a break from the hard surface. The road crossing is close to Dial Farm, with "The Moody Cow" advertising fresh milk for sale. It apparently also has a little café and a convenience store. We said "hello" to some moody cows and continued beneath Swarthy Hill. The landscape presented us with two puzzles (with a third solved on the return leg...read on). Firstly, what is the geology of Swarthy Hill?: it was a mass of gorse, which made us think of the Whin Sill (gorse is known as whin in some parts). But I can't find any mention of the Whin Sill (an igneous intrusion) this far west. Secondly, we were puzzled by what looks like a pretty coastal hamlet by the coast in the distance. This was more easily solved on our onward walk: it is the club house of Maryport Golf Course (not quite the image we'd got from a distance!) though there is an older whitewashed building here too.

We reached the golf course, initially to our left on the inland side of the road and the cycleway; I think there may even be part of the golf course up on the hill! Then the B5300 headed inland and we crossed back over it and followed the approach road to the club house, back towards the coast. The Maryport Golf Club seems a friendly place, and we said hello to a couple of men who were drinking glasses outside the bar (at not quite 10am!). However, we still had some way to go to the centre of the town. We walked past the older whitewashed building and then, ignoring a track which heads uphill to Maryport's Netherhall School, descended to the promenade and walked along it, passing regular seats and brief biographies of various Roman emporers. I had no idea there were so many (about 70 in total apparently, not all commemorated here), but that could be because most appear to have met an early and violent death. A path was signposted as leading up to the Senhouse Roman Museum, but it was nearly an hour until the advertised opening time, so we decided to go on to the town and visit the museum on our way back to Allonby.

As we got closer to Maryport, we had good views over the beach to the outer harbour and soon enough we reached the first of the harbour walls, we spent some time exploring the intricacies of the harbour; it's a complicated place, probably reflecting the town's one-time importance as a coal port and a shipbuilding centre. It was the Stenhouse Family, local landowners, who led the town's development in the 18th Century and indeed Humphrey Senhouse re-named the new town after his wife Mary. Unfortunately it was low tide, so we didn't see much activity in the harbour, but we enjoyed a cup of coffee, sitting outside "The Wharf". They were doing a roaring trade in ice-creams, but it didn't seem warm enough for ice-cream; we opted for coffee and enjoyed that, chatting to a woman from Cockermouth who was sitting at the adjacent table.

Our return walk to Allonby took a distinctly Roman theme, acknowledging the earlier history of the area. First of all we were heading for the Senhouse Roman Museum. We could have retraced our steps close to the sea, but we decided instead to climb up towards the town centre and approach from that direction, which is how we came to encounter the rather confusing sign shown on the right. We took the left-hand turn here, and approached the Museum by way of.... Oops, the road we approached on appears to be called "The Promenade", but I described the walkway we were on alongside the beach as "the promenade", which is what it was; I thought we were on "Sea Brows" now. Whatever, we were at the top of a hill, with excellent views down over the harbour, and the museum was straight ahead of us, in "The Battery", a building which was built as a Royal Naval Artillery Volunteer drill hall.

The collection in the Senhouse Roman Museum was started by another member of the Senhouse family, John on this occasion, in 1570. Most of the objects in the collection derive from the fort (and the civilian settlement attached to it) that was just next to where the museum is now. The museum is particularly known for its large collection of Roman altar stones. That doesn't sound very interesting, but it was; the altar stones are in remarkably good condition and there were various other interesting displays, including one on Roman cremation (and there was me, thinking this was a modern invention). Outside the museum there is a reconstructed watchtower and we climbed up this to get a view over the remains of the fort and civilian settlement. Then we went looking for a place to have lunch. We found a bench and sat down, only for it to start to rain so we moved on to a shelter, only to find this didn't have any seats and that the rain had stopped, so we moved on to another bench. Here we managed to finish our lunch, watching the tide come in, forcing the fishermen (fisherpeople?) on the beach to retreat every so often.

We continued down the path back to sea level to rejoin our previous route. We continued across the golf course and over the B5300 for the first time. But now we were curious. The museum had taught us more about Milefortlet 21 and we knew we had passed it on our route from Allonby, but we didn't know where it was. By now we had worked out, with the help of aerial photographs, that must be at the top of Swarthy Hill, but we weren't sure where - and the signs announcing the milefortlet from opposite directions on the B5300 are some distance apart and rather non-specific, which doesn't really help much. However, Richard spotted a path on the right soon after we'd crossed the road to Crosscanonby and we took this, passing some of the "Moody cows" then turning left and climbing alongside the edge of Swarthy Hill, parallel to the B5300 and Hadrian's Cycleway. The excavated remains of Milefortlet 21 were at the top, in the form of clearly visible mounds and ditches in the grass, with an information board explaining that it was built at the same time as Hadrian's Wall, one of a series of milefortlets built down the west coast of Cumbria from Bowness-on-Solway, where Hadrian's Wall ends (and where we had started our walk on the Hadrian's Wall Path).

The path that had led to Milefortlet 21 doesn't go any further, but from the end of the field containing the milefortlet there were excellent views to the Crosscanonby Saltpans, down by the coast. They are somewhat overgrown so when passing on the road or cycleway you don't notice them; well, I didn't! The saltpans were constructed in the 17th Century and were used in the production of salt for more than 100 years. Now they are reckoned to be amongst the best preserved saltpans of this type in England. There is a much better description in Solway Shore-walker's well-written blog post here.

We retraced our steps back to the cycleway and current route of the England Coast Path and continued along it uneventfully to Allonby. As we approached the village we enjoyed watching a group of kite-surfers. The unseasonably cold and windy weather is at least to their advantage (and indeed there were kite-surfers out each afternoon and evening for the rest of our stay in Allonby).

Following leg