Читать книгу The Lune Valley and Howgills. 40 scenic fell, river and woodland walks онлайн

16 страница из 44

Beyond Springs Wood, the path briefly closes with Leck Beck (Walk 25)

Approaching Lancaster, the River Lune becomes tidal and enters its final phase. At the city’s maritime height, the riverbanks were hives of activity, lined with mills, shipyards, quays and warehouses. Some of the old buildings remain, having found new life as residential accommodation, but elsewhere today’s commercial enterprise no longer depends upon the river and instead faces towards the streets and roads. The riverbank now forms part of a Millennium Park that follows the Lune from Caton to Glasson, a pleasant, traffic-free conduit for walkers and cyclists to and from the heart of the city along the line of a former railway. Its centrepiece is a striking modern bridge spanning the river at Lancaster that brings in another trail from the coast at Morecambe.

Skirting a belt of low drumlins, formed from till deposited along the coastal fringe of glaciation, the Lune winds on to its estuary, where it finally breaks free of the land. Enclosure and drainage during the 19th century have reclaimed some of the low-lying moss (coastal marsh) as farmland, but beyond the flood dikes there remains a vast area of tide-washed mud, sandbanks and grazing salt marsh. The Plover Scar Light marks the obvious end of the river, but its channel is mapped between the sands for a further 4 miles (6.4km) to the Point of Lune, where it finally loses its identity within Morecambe Bay.