Lytham St. Annes Coast

'Local stroll'

Date: 18 Feb 2012                                         Start time: 13:32

Start point: The Boulevard / Denford Avenue, Lytham St Anne's - SD332279

Walkers: Mark Illingworth, Emma Lever

Distance: 10.99miles                                      Time: 3:56:12

Route: Walk SSW down Denford Avenue toward copse of trees. At trees, turn right to walk across flat grassy area toward car park and cafe. Continue through car park and over grassy dunes to left of cafe. At miniature railway take inner path past pub, cinema and swimming pool toward pier entrance. Pass front of pier and walk down dunes to sandy beach. Turn SE and walk across beach to concrete sea wall. Join 'Lancashire Coastal Way' (not waymarked) between dunes left and marshes right, with optional diversion over dunes. At steps for Fairhaven Lake, take these and follow path if tide is in, or follow sands in front of concrete sea defences if tide is out. Walk E across Ganny's Bay and up to raised promenade. Again, an option is to walk over small dunes to left. Where promenade opens up with flat expanse, take next staircase to your right down to the pebbles and sand. Continue E past slipway and marshes to jetty. Walk out and back along wooden jetty then head E along low grassy track past windmill and old lifeboat house. After 100yards or so follow a grassy path S across marshy area to view river channel then head back towards path and office buildings, avoiding muddy ditches as you go. Walk around rear of office building and up concrete steps for views of river channel then return around offices and follow higher tarmac path past windmill, car parks and lifeboat station until a path N leads inland to Lowther Gardens via zebra crossing. Walk diagonally right to left through Lowther Gardens and follow road W on exit. After a couple of hundred yards turn N up private road over railway and turn left at gate through Witch Wood. Follow wood trail to left to emerge at road and follow road to right until a church. Take the second left at junction by church then take next left and go over a bridge. Take next right after bridge and walk past auction house and residential properties until you reach conservation area. Walk left by conservation area the right in front of school. After the old school building converted to flats, turn left down dual carriageway and take second right to start point.

Weather: Mostly sunny with stiff north-westerly winds and a couple of icy cold showers quickly blowing over.

Notes: This area is my home - its where I've walked, ran, cycled and played my whole life, so I have hundreds of stories, but I never really think much of what you see on this walk is noteworthy - when really it very much is.

I was disappointed during this walk that we could only get a third of the way up St Anne's pier and couldn't get outside (it was winter though!). The games in  their largely resembled those of my early teenage years, but nearby Steady Eddies looked closed (it isn't), as is the casino I first played table games at. Gambling memory lane.

The 'dead pier' wasn't visited as we were in the middle of a strong icy shower at this point in time. It looks a lot smaller these days than it seemed in my youth. It can't just be that I've got bigger. It used to feel like a risk jumping off the end. I don't know if it would anymore.

The section between the Beach Terrace Cafe, around Fairhaven Lake, to Granny's Bay is very familiar to me nowadays, running or walking here often. The switch from wide sands to grassy wetland and back to sands always confuses me. This stretch looks differently made up all throughout the year. My favourite feature around here is the beacons along the sea defences at Fairhaven Lake, but I've never seen these lit up in my life - would be nice if they were. One thing I saw during this walk that I never have before was the low sand drifts which ghosted along just above the ground. It looked pretty cool, but got the camera lens dirty getting down close to it.

Something to note, which I rarely pause to consider, is the amount of impressive and varied houses you see on this stretch of the Fylde coast. Contemporary ones just being built, concrete buildings of the 1950s-70s and mansions dating back to the Victorian era all side by side. Speaking of buildings, I must mention the much photographed and painted Lytham Windmill - the iconic focal landmark of my home town. Along with golf, this image is the best known of Lytham to non-locals. It only really grabs me these days in pictures. I can walk past without looking and I have few photos of my own, but Emma has done a number of great reproductions of the famous scene.

My favourite thing about this walk was the chance to reminisce and share my childhood stories with Emma. The highlight being jumping ditches down past Lytham Green. We didn't dare jump the larger ditches where my brother and grandad once turned into a muddy mess once upon a time, but this is a fun and interesting landscape that reminds of some of the reasons I still love my hometown. Really, the only thing missing from the walk was a pint in The Taps - but we even got round to that in the evening.

*the observations and notes above were made in February, just after going on this walk. Since this time a curious change has taken place on the landscape pictures above. The photo shown was taken on the day of the walk, 18 February 2012. Through 2011 it was almost beach out here. Now all that wet sand has turned green and grassy. I'm guessing the wet and not particularly beach friendly summer of 2012 is to thank for it, but it shows just how quickly nature can move and the natural world around us can change. I thought I had a picture, I'll get one.