OK. then, who's heard of this place? Not many, I guarantee.
Walney Island, as us locals know it, not Isle of Walney, is one of
Cumbria's off the beaten track places. It's a long, thin, low lying piece of land, approx. 11 miles long, 1 mile wide, sitting in the Irish Sea. It is at the western end of the A590 in South Cumbria and is separated from
Barrow-in-Furness by a narrow channel, crossed by a single bridge.
This is where I lived as a young child, enjoying the freedom of it's beaches and country lanes, hating to have to leave it and my friends at the age of 10, when we moved to
Grange-0ver-Sands.
Many of it's 13,000 or so inhabitants live in terraced or semi-detached houses, originally built for the workforce of Barrow docks and the shipbuilding company Vickers Armstrong. The higher up the rung you were, the bigger the house. You know how it goes....
The island's two oldest settlements are Biggar and North Scale, established long before Barrow's shipbuilding industry. Biggar Dyke, a coastal defence system, was built in 16thc. Just a couple of years ago, this was breached when seriously strong winds and high tides swept the sea over and swamped Biggar Village, actually leaving it stranded for a day or so. There is serious concern regarding Walney's survival with much coastal erosion occurring on it's western side.
People either love it or hate it. If you like nature reserves, bird-watching, wild, empty beaches and not much else, then you'll be OK. But, if, on the other hand, you want retail therapy, night life or even mountain scenery, they are all still within a stone's throw of Walney. Really, you can have the best of both worlds as Walney's proximity to Barrow means all mod cons are at hand.
Walney is also close to the
Lake District and if you want a change from all that mountain scenery then the island's sandy beaches are an ideal alternative.
A couple of websites about the island:
www.walney-island.com
www.walneyisle.co.uk
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