Handful of History in Cumbria
By Diane Kerr
Beach finds from Allonby and Parton (Diane Kerr).
A visit to Cumbria in February was a very pleasant twentieth wedding anniversary surprise from my husband. I’d heard the name Allonby mentioned in sea glass Facebook groups, together with photos of deliciously colored sea marbles, minty green frosted sea stoppers, and glowing sea glass reds. To say my sea glass appetite was whetted was an understatement, and I may have mentioned Allonby within my husband’s hearing distance more than a few times.
Allonby is almost directly west from my home in East Lothian, a four-hour drive across the softly rounded Southern Uplands and past Beattock Summit at 1,000 feet. Snow was forecast and there was a yellow weather warning in place, meaning bad weather conditions and the probability that the conditions might become worse. However, the sea glass sirens were calling, and as fellow sea glass collectors will know, that call is impossible to resist.
Our home for the week was a quirky three-level cottage named Gulls Hatch. It was situated in a square of similar quaintly named residences such as Seascape Cottage, Captains Cottage, and encouragingly, Sea Glass Cottage. In the twilight gloom I was excited to see we were situated directly behind the beach.
Allonby shingle (Diane Kerr).
Allonby’s name was originally “Alein’s By.” “Alein” is a French personal name of Breton origin and “by” is a late Old English word from the Old Norse “byr” and Swedish or Danish “by” meaning “village” or “hamlet.” Today Allonby is a quiet tourist town boasting five miles of shingle-strewn (pebble-covered) beaches with spectacular views across the Solway Firth to the mountains of Southern Scotland.
One thing we didn’t quite realize is just how small and isolated Allonby is. When teatime came, we discovered there were no stores open, no restaurants, and no takeaway shops in the village. The closest was Maryport some five miles away. I considered breaking into the snack reserves and dining on potato chips and jelly babies. In the end, we opted for the alternative, which was to send my weary husband out into the dark unknown to forage, armed only with the satellite navigation and a credit card. To his credit, he returned (after two hours) bearing fish and chips and a necessary bottle of wine.
The following morning brought sunshine, an outgoing tide, and me, resplendent in my usual wellies and sea glass bum bag marching on to the beach as fast as my aging bones would allow.
Allonby granite cobbles (Diane Kerr).
Allonby Beach is shingle-strewn and stretches as far as the eye can see in both directions. The first thing that stood out was the variety and colors of the beach pebbles. There were sea-smoothed granite cobbles in purple, grey, pink, yellow, black, and white and combinations of all these colors, some with quartz inclusions.
Colorful slag (Diane Kerr). Denim blue slag (Diane Kerr).
The second thing that surprised me was the amount of colorful slag pieces. Not just in shades of denim and navy blue but also in shades of bright green, some had an uneven bubbled surface and looked like mini asteroids.
Slag waste asteroids (Diane Kerr).
Slag is the waste product of metal smelting, where the impurities in the ore are burned off and this glass/ceramic-like material is left behind as a residue. One of the impurities was sulfur, and it’s thought that the oxidized form gives rise to the blue and green colors of slag waste.
Although metals have been smelted since the Bronze Age, during the industrial revolution the demand for iron and steel skyrocketed—railroads, factories, machinery, and building projects all greedily demanded large quantities of metals, and foundries sprang up across the British Isles. Tons of waste materials were dumped without a thought on the nearest beach. Many years later, those slag pieces are smoothed by the action of waves, sand, and shingle and provide an unexpected pop of color among the gravel and stones. Although a waste, man-made substance slag waste does have a silver lining: recent research in Scotland has shown that steel slag is particularly good at capturing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Over time calcite crystals form both on the surface and within the slag. It is this calcite that holds the carbon dioxide and prevents it from floating free in the atmosphere.
Geologically, Cumbria has an eclectic mix of bed rock types, from glacial deposits and sedimentary layers to volcanic granites. Under the sea there is an ancient fault line in the Solway Firth that traces the boundary between England and Scotland. There is also a fault line running nearby to the town of Maryport between Triassic age rocks and much older Carboniferous. And deep underground in seams and outcrops lie the remains of those rich Carboniferous forests in the form of coal seams.
With all these geological and industrial attributes, it was unsurprising that Allonby’s shingle made an interesting and colorful array of beach pebbles, but what was surprising was the absence of sea glass.
Codd marble (Diane Kerr).
There was the occasional piece, nicely smoothed and frosted by the sea. However, after a four-hour hunt, my sea glass finds comprised only an unusually large sea green kick up, a single Codd marble, and several large oval pieces in shades of aqua blue and sea foam green. It may well be that there is a hidden seam of wonderful sea glass pieces, but not having the local knowledge and despite walking miles in each direction, I failed to find it.
I consoled myself with ice cream from the famous Twentymans ice cream parlor which has been serving Allonby’s holiday makers for over 100 years. Even in February, the little white shop was queued out the door. I resisted the challenge of the Allonby Whopper (a huge creation with an entire bar of chocolate stuck in the top) and instead enjoyed a Blackforestesque cherry and chocolate combination.
That evening, after doing some online sea glass sleuthing, a local Facebook group pointed me in the direction of Parton Beach, some half hour’s drive South of Allonby. Here lay sea glass treasures allegedly. So with renewed ice cream fueled optimism, we set off the next day.
Tiny doll hand (Diane Kerr). Bottom left: Road sign near Allonby (Raymond Keller/Shutterstock.com).
Parton is a tiny village with less than 1,000 inhabitants. However, it has a fevered history of legal disputes, plus the coming and going of various industries—including salt pan production, a busy port, railways, bottle works, a brewery, a colliery, and iron foundries—all of which have left their signature waste materials among the gravel of stormy Providence Bay.
The sheltered anchorage in Parton Bay was used by the Romans, who had a fort (Gabrosentum) on the high ground to the north of the present village, beneath St. Bridget’s Church. The platform of the fort can still be seen today. In Elizabethan times, a number of small merchant vessels were based in the bay. The village’s success rose and fell like the tides, and over time the village’s harbor was destroyed by a powerful storm in 1795, the bottle works closed, and the foundry was abandoned in the 1920s. Today the tiny artifacts among the gravel reveal the village’s story told in pottery, sea glass, iron slag, and stone.
The beach is accessed by driving through a narrow railway tunnel which opens up Narnia-like into a large free car park overlooking the bay. Additionally, there is a car park (closer to the action), which can be reached by turning right before the wastewater treatment plant outside the town.
Parton Beach did not disappoint. All its history, as harbor, bottle works, foundry, and home to thousands of long-gone workers and their families was told in sea worn glimpses among the shingle. A sea worn pottery sherd of once treasured pottery, a perfect oval of aqua blue sea glass perhaps from a Codd bottle smashed to extract the treasured marble within, frosted art glass, flashed with cranberry red or cobalt blue, once gracing a colliery worker’s mantelpiece and broken during the daily dust.
The industrial heritage is visible in epic scale. Blue slag waste grows in rocky outcrops several feet thick, rising from the sand in shades of pale grey, blue, and in layers, banded like giant agates. Heading towards the low cliffs there are the remains of structures half swallowed by the tides and massive platforms of waste iron. Beyond where the cliffs rise up is the rushing outflow, known as Lowca Beck, which cuts through the shingle and spreads itself in watery dendrites into the sea. Here I discovered a tiny worn sea stopper, a white Codd marble, and most excitingly a piece of purple sea glass.
Sunset at Allonby (Colin Ward/Shutterstock.com).
As the sun set on my Cumbria visit, I made my way back to the car, tired, happy with my finds yet disappointed that my time here was so short. No doubt (if I mention it enough to my other half) I’ll be back to Parton Beach one day soon. Until then, Parton Beach has definitely left me wanting more.
Learn more about the best beaches and destinations for sea and beach glass, seashells, fossils, rocks, and more beach finds around the world. Articles ›
This article appeared in Beachcombing Magazine Volume 43 July/August 2024.
