St Bees Head to Whitehaven

Sandstone cliffs, St Bees Head

Birker Fell,   surrounded by lark song.  Beyond tussocks of golden grasses Harknott Pass,  a fort on the Roman Road between the fort of Ravenglass and Hadrian’s Wall. Ravenglass ( Giannoventa) provisioning the north west.
St Bees Head and its seabird cliffs is today’s objective.  Gorse flowering along the cliff path,  flowers of scurvy grass and birdsong.  Although I cannot hear the yellowhammer I remember from my first visit. Eroded  and weathered sandstone cliffs, deep red through a coating of  iron oxide.

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We smell seabirds before we see them. The reek of guano from kittiwake, guillemot and razorbill come to the cliffs to breed.  From the cliff top, the birds look tiny.  Packed tight  on the narrowest of ledges- if you think every shelf, niche or quoin of vantage has been adopted wait until early June at the height of the breeding season.
At St Bees Head the sandstone cliffs are intricately sculpted, weathered smooth with curve, fluting, frieze, cornice and entablature-  eroded quirky and irregular by wild weather and storms at sea.  Sandstone soft-pitted or angular.  Narrow shelves with a rock-canopy where pale  kittiwake cram against  red sandstone.   Flat slabs stained white with guano.  Red sandstone darkened because grains of sand are coated with rust-coloured iron oxide. 

To St Bees Head , the coastal path to Whitehaven and the start of the Coast to Coast walkers’ route. Whitehaven , with the first undersea coal mine at Haigh Pit.   Exports of coal, under the auspices of Lowther family, made Whitehaven an important port in England in the  mid-19th century.  Importing sugar from Barbados (the recipe for Cumberland rum butter came about by chance), spices (aromatic wooden drawers to savour). From The Beacon, Whitehaven museum and gallery, we look down upon the old harbour with piers Rum Tongue and Sugar Tongue. Trade with the American colonies. And the more recent marina.
The ruins of St Michael’s Church in Whitehaven have memorials for those killed in the mines from 16th century, and a poignant sculpture to children killed in the coal mines.
The Beacon has excellent displays of fern fossils discovered in coal, of the coal forests.  The distribution of coal mines.  And the sandstone quarries.
Late in the day, we drive to the coast at Providence and watch oystercatchers foraging along the shore. Then a handsome male wheatear perches on a rock.  He's come from Africa and seeks a mate- his breeding plumage at it most beautiful.  Black bandit mask, a hint of white vent and warm colouring on his rounded breast and belly.

The Beacon Museum engrossed us, so we spent all day there in Whitehaven. It was the anniversary of the Battle of Towton, Palm Sunday 29th March 1461. Lancastrians oppose Yorkist forces led by the eighteen year old Edward of York,  the red rose clashes with the white- battles came thick and fast, culminating in Towton.  Palm Sunday was a bitterly cold day, a battle in a snowstorm,   'It snew'  says the chronicle.   Afterwards,  Cock Beck ran red with blood.  Exploring Whitehaven, I shared with my companion a haiku I was composing.  Three days later it snew and the fells turned white. I turn the idea of a conflict of the red rose and the white into roses like poppies, commemorative.

                                                                              Palm Sunday 29 March 1461, Battle of Towton

                                                                                                Roses red on white
                                                                                                 All day it snew on Towton
                                                                                                 Cock Beck ran blood-red