Kents Bank Grange over Sands
The pretty village of Kent Bank is the setting for a Lothlorien Holiday Cottage.
Kents Bank largely consists of modern buildings with the exception of the Guide’s Farm on Cart Lane.
Our Grange-over-Sands holiday accommodation is situated on the edge of the ever-changing sands of Morecambe Bay.
Morecambe Bay is one of the last wildernesses left in England and is a sand plain of one hundred and twenty square miles.
Kents Bank takes its name from the River Kent which once ran close to the shore.
In olden times, Kents Bank was the first terra firma landing stage of the perilous route over the sands.
Today, due to the shifting sands, the shore is more of a salt marsh with springy turf covering the immediate shoreline.
Lothlorien Holiday Let is a five-minute walk from the shore and railway station.
Kents Bank is famously known as one end of the internationally renowned Cross-Bay route.
Crossing this watery expanse of Morecambe Bay at low tide was one of the main routes into the South Lake District.
Surely this route is one of the most unusual roads in the country, this constantly changing road was used by locals and visitors alike.
The route has a long history and probably used in the Bronze Age and continued to be one of the most important thoroughfares in Cumbria in the mediaeval period.
The priors of Conishead and Cartmel priories appointed guides to lead travellers over the treacherous Leven and Kent Sands respectively.
This dangerous route was once regularly used by horse-drawn coaches crossing the sands to and from Lancaster.
The dangers of the crossing did not discourage that audacious Scot, Robert Bruce, who in 1322 on one of his sorties across the Border, crossed the Sands and made a surprise attack on Lancaster.
Right until the mid-nineteenth century, the ‘main road’ from Lancaster to the Furness peninsula continued to be across the bay.
As a result, shifting sands changed the ‘normal’ route between Hest Bank and Kents Bank which has been deemed too dangerous.
A 2004 accident in Morecambe Bay resulted in the deaths of 23 Chinese illegal immigrants working as cockle pickers as a result of the advancing tide.
Subsequently, the historic cross-bay route now goes between Arnside and Kents Bank.
Barnes Wallace lived in Kents Bank for a time when he was designing airships at Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness. He commuted there by train from Kents Bank station.
Wallis was a Scientist and inventor, most famously known for designing the bouncing bomb, immortalised in the 1955 war film The Dam Busters.
If you are looking for a holiday cottage which is ideal if you are taking part in a cross-bay walk enquire here.
