Lacra B

This place has been on my radar for a few years now …
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1009111

Apologies for the poor photo but it was SO bitterly cold I couldn’t see for streaming eyes. I was roaming around for ages trying to get the lie of the land, sort random stones from significant stones and stone circles from stone avenues. This must have been an absolutely fascinating place in its day. Next time I’ll have to visit on a warm midsummer evening with the sun setting on the sea to the west…

I’ve held out for as long as I could … 

Sea to the West - Norman Nicholson

When the sea’s to the west 
The evenings are one dazzle - 
You can find no sign of water. 
Sun upflows the horizon; 
Waves of shine 
Heave, crest, fracture, 
Explode on the shore; 
The wide day burns. 
In the incandescent mantle of the air. 

Once, fifteen, 
I would lean on handlebars, 
Staring into the flare, 
Blinded by looking, 
Letting the gutterings and sykes of light 
Flood into my skull. 

Then, on the stroke of bedtime, 
I’d turn to the town, 
Cycle past purpling dykes 
To a brown drizzle 
Where black-scum shadows 
Stagnated between backyard walls. 
I pulled the warm dark over my head 
Like an eiderdown. 

Yet in that final stare when I 
(Five times, perhaps, fifteen) 
Creak protesting away - 
The sea to the west, 
The land darkening - 
Let my eyes at the last be blinded 
Not by the dark 
But by the dazzle.


Afterwards I went down to Hodbarrow to see a more recent example of mankind’s mark on the landscape and to see if I could find any kidney ore. This was the largest iron mine in the world in its day and is now a flooded lagoon and nature reserve. Imagine working down there (extra). 
Picking up stones of haematite it was easy to tell by the weight that the metallic content can be up to 65%.

Here’s Nicholson again, a fragment from Hodbarrow Flooded, A Local Habitation …

At seventy fathom
My Uncle Jack was killed
With half a ton of haematite spilled on his back.
They wound him up to the light
Still gasping for air.

Such a fascinating area. It’s so lovely to have so many frequent trains too. I keep jumping up to watch them … my inner trainspotter is outed.