Freiston Shore to Wrangle Sea Bank, Leverton Marsh

We'd abandoned plans for two days of walking this weekend because of a weather warning for ice and snow, but we were determined to get out for a walk today, so we drove to the Sea Lane car park at TF407436, which we'd reached when we were last in Lincolnshire in November. Our plan had been to walk for a couple of hours and then retrace our steps, but when we got out of the car, we were immediately struck by the cold (it was around zero degrees Celsius, but it felt colder) and we realised that we probably wouldn't want to be out of the car for that long. The two and a half hours we were walking turned out to be long enough and within that time we managed to walk a circuit, rather than returning by the same route that we'd used on the outward leg, and we found a place where we should be able to park so as to advance further along the King Charles III England Coast Path next time we are here.  Most importantly, it was a lovely walk.

We started by following a bank out towards the sea. Yes, I see say "sea" - most unusually for recent walks in Lincolnshire we could clearly see the sea beyond the marsh. When we couldn't go any further without going down onto the marsh, we turned left and followed the outer sea bank for about three miles. It was easy walking, and splendidly isolated. We passed the Butterwick Low Pumping Station, but we had just the birds for company, including swans and geese on a field. Just as I was wondering if we'd have any human company on the whole walk, we realised we were following a family group with two dogs. 

We passed the family's car, parked down by an avenue of trees, and I think the car's owner later told us it was parked at Benington Low (though this isns't recommended as a parking place as you have to drive on a private road to get here - perhaps they're locals so have permission).  By the time we caught up with the family group, they were just passing another dog walker who was walking in the opposite direction. He had three dogs, one of which wanted to play with the family's two...and then one of the family's dogs wanted to come with us...So, suddenly it wasn't so peaceful, but everyone was friendly and the presence of a number of dog walkers in the area did alert us to various other possible parking places, which was very useful.

Eventually another pumping station came into view in the distance and we realised that cars were parked both here and slightly further back, in an area by another sea bank, slightly inland of us. This is Leverton Pumping Station, and as the bank curved around to head towards it, a German Shepherd dog came bounding towards us. The owner had some difficulty calling it back, but he was eventually successful; he was also very apologetic when we passed, but it wasn't a problem at all.  We later watched man and dog striding out along the bank along which we'd walked. We reached the pumping station and decided to decree this to be the limit of today's walk; a sign by the pumping station told us we were by Wrangle Sea Bank and there were indeed a couple of plausible parking places nearby.

We decided to return to the car along the slightly inland sea bank. Near the access road to the next little parking area (which becomes a private road running alongside the bank), we passed a memorial constructed from a large lump of Shap granite. The memorial is to one John Saul and his wife Dulcie. It turns out that John Saul founded a farming company of the same name, based in nearby Leverton. Slightly further on, we passed a field of cauliflowers where they had been harvesting relatively recently; I wonder if we've had any cauliflowers from here.

The bank led nearly all the way back to the car, by a slightly more direct route than we'd followed on the outward leg.  We again passed a few dog-walkers, including the man with three dogs who we'd passed just by the family group; he was obviously working a similar circuit to us, but in the opposite direction. There were good views to the bank we'd walked along earlier, with the sea beyond, and we passed the end of the avenue of trees leading to where the car had been parked at Benington Low, and the drainage ditch to the inland of Butterwick Low Pumping Station.

The final section of the bank bent around a bit, past a number of WW2 defences - and a horse! Then we left the bank and followed the track we'd driven along earlier to the car park; we could probably have followed the bank all the way, but we weren't sure and we didn't want to take the risk. We had a picnic lunch in the car then, on the way home, stopped at a conveniently placed Dobbies Boston Garden Centre for a cup of tea. and to warm up a bit.