You may wonder why I keep coming back to the Bay. My cycling is for leisure and pleasure these days, and there is no pleasure on the busy roads around Longridge. The old railways, cycleways and canal up here are ideal and one has the added benefit of the ocean breeze and those views across the bay. Oh, and it’s all relatively flat.
I suspect that sometimes I am bewitched by that view and neglect little details on the promenade. Well today I paid more attention to what was under my feet, I mean wheels, and I ended up walking stretches of the front so as not to miss things. I had arrived onto the front near Heysham via a new route, for me, which diverged off the old railway/cycleway and wound its way through the White Lund Industrial Estate, lovely.
From the start at Sandylands I notice several, about three dozen, round interpretative discs set into the promenade telling the story of Heysham, Morecambe and the Bay. A quirky addition to the front. For a more detailed history and lots of old photographs and archive material it is worth visiting the Maritime Museum on the quayside in Lancaster. Morecambe has certainly had a chequered history – but the future with The Eden Project hopefully under way should be more positive. It is frightening to realise that I am part of that recent history, bringing my family up to the amusement parks and aquarium still in existence 50 years ago and now no longer. I try to remember if the central pier, mentioned more than once in the discs, was still standing on our visits. It is suspicious that there were so many fires on the derelict piers. 
Morecambe in the 1940s. The two piers highlighted.
So there you have it. On the way I passed this house painting, an old pier/breaker, a couple of turrets and these elegant Edwardian terraces. Fading glories.
As I approached the west end of Morecambe I was intrigued by a large building set back from the front. The building now known as The Battery once marked the boundary between Morecambe and Heysham. (in 1928 the two districts merged). In the nineteenth century the site was occupied by an old mill and the area was later used as a firing range, with an artillery battery stationed there because of fear of an invasion by the French. The mill, then known as The Roundhouse, was used for storing ammunition. The Battery Inn was built in 1863 and in 1900 it expanded to become The Battery Hotel, later acquired by Thwaites Brewery and functioned into the 1980s. It has recently been bought by a property developer for conversion into luxury flats. I’m not sure whether much progress has been made.
I don’t think the adjacent Beach Cafe is the best of architectural designs.
My informative circles had finished, but something on the road caught my eye – half a car to cut your motoring costs, an effective advertising gimmick.
And what’s more on the other side of the road a series of artistic panels brightening up an otherwise drab development hoarding at the former Frontier Land. I now remember Eunice from the Mouse House mentioning them here and here in far more detail than my pictures below. Local artists are highlighted. Several showing Eric the town’s celebrated son.
I hope the Midland Hotel is given anew coat of paint before Eden arrives.
By now my hands were frozen in the cold northerly wind whipping down the promenade. Time to get cycling again. On past the Midland, Happy Mount Park, Hest Bank and onto the Lancaster Canal back to Lancaster. I had just about warmed through by the time I reached my car at Halton. It’s only half an hour back down the motorway, but I have a sense of lingering guilt that I shouldn’t be driving farther than I’m cycling.
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I presume your White Lund comment was tongue in cheek, or have I missed some hidden delight? Would you dare buy a second hand car there? We actually did!
White Lund. A world previously unknown to me. What struck me most was the amount of rubbish strewn along the verges, mainly takeaway food packaging and drink cartons. All must have just been thrown out of car and lorry windows. What hope have we?
I need to get on my bike again, but am similarly terrified of the local roads, and would need to drive out quite a distance for somewhere bike friendly and car free. Morecambe looks like quite the spot. We used to go to Happy Mount park as kids for the illuminations.
I recommend the car park at Halton, five minutes from the motorway. A choice of cycle routes through Lancaster either over the bridge to Morecambe or ahead to Glasson.
I forgot about the illuminations.
Let me know of any cycle friendly routes in your area.
The remains of the Central Pier were still there when I first moved to Morecambe. Starlings roosted there and I had a great view of the murmurations from my flat above the promenade.
Social housing?
It’s amazing all the different little details you found.
Morecambe just keeps on giving.
I like the half a car, it’s very amusing. I saw something similar several years ago at a tractor show, it was towed behind a tractor and had a bed in it 🙂 I have several street art photos waiting for the right opportunity to include them in a Morecambe post but I haven’t seen that big gable end one so assume it’s relatively new – whereabouts is it? I love the last photo, just the right light and so clear, it’s beautiful 🙂
That gable end is south of the Battery on the front in Sandylands, I only spotted it when I looked back.
Thanks for brining to my attention the ‘art wall’
A couple of seconds earlier the light was even better highlighting the Midland.
Thanks for that, I very rarely walk any further down than the Battery so that’s why I haven’t seen the painting. I’ll make a point of looking for it the next time I’m over that way. I don’t really remember the Central Pier but I do remember the West End one – I went roller skating there in 1977, only a couple of months before it was destroyed.
Roller skating – my boys used to go to a Roller Disco at the local sports centre in the 80s.
In my teens I practically lived at my local roller skating rink, I loved it. I still have my white roller boots, also some more up-to-date ones which I got in the late 90s. Maybe one day I’ll skate along Morecambe prom, it’s an ideal place for it 🙂
What a comeback.
Lovely cycle ride. I have to visit Morecambe one day.
You would enjoy it.