I’ve previously discussed the difficulties and dangers of travel in the Regency era in a number of posts on this blog, but the Lancaster Sands in Lanchashire presented a variety of difficulties for even the most knowledgeable traveler. My first introduction to this region was via a William Turner painting, Lancaster Sands, painted ca. 1826. I was struck by the laborers and villagers walking alongside a coach in shallow water. Why would a coach travel so slowly that pedestrians could keep pace?
Lancaster Sands, William Turner. Image @Wiki Paintings. Birminham Museum and Art Gallery
Thumbnail showing truer colors of Turner’s painting.
As it turns out, the crossing over the Lancaster Sands to reach Ulverston was fraught with danger, especially after heavy rains. In the early 19th century travelers crossed this watery passage in the Lake District at low tide, for this was the shorter (but more dangerous) route.
The sands forming the Bay of Morecambe, covered by the sea at high water, are crossed every day by travellers whose time or inclination leads them to choose this route rather than one more circuitous, and nearly thrice the distance, inland. – The Sands, John Roby
The crossing was extremely hazardous due to shifting sands and the timing of the departure had to be perfect:
“Coach services, scheduled to accommodate the changing tides, ran between hotels in Lancaster and Ulverston. In 1820, one traveller relates, he was rudely awakened in his Lancaster hotel at five in the morning when the coach driver burst into his bedroom shouting, “For God’s sake make haste! The tide is down … if you delay we shall all be drowned.” – The Pleasures and Treasures of Britain: A Discerning Traveller’s Companion (Google eBook)David Kemp Dundurn, Jan 12, 1992 – p. 307
Otley Map, Lancaster Sands, 1818. Image @Portsmouth University.
Today, as over 150 years ago, the Sands Road requires a guide to help travelers negotiate the dangerous tide floods.
Before the railway was made, the old way of crossing the sands from Lancaster to Ulverstone must have been very striking, both from the character of the scenery around and a sense of danger, which cannot but have given something of the piquancy of adventure to the journey. The channels are constantly shifting, particularly after heavy rains, when they are perilously uncertain. For many centuries past, two guides have conducted travellers over them. Their duty is to observe the changes, and find fordable points. In all seasons and states of the weather this was their duty, and in times of storm and fog it must have been fraught with danger. These guides were anciently appointed by the Prior of Cartmel, and received synodal and Peter-pence for their maintenance. They are now paid from the revenues of the duchy. The office of guide has been so long held by a family of the name of Carter, that the country people have given that name to the office itself. A gentleman, crossing from Lancaster, once asked the guide if “Carters” were never lost on the sands. “I never knew any lost,” said the guide; “there’s one or two drowned now and then, but they’re generally found somewhere i’th bed when th’ tide goes out.” A certain ancient mariner, called Nuttall, who lives at Grange, on the Cartmel shore, told me that “people who get their living by ‘following the sands,’ hardly ever die in their beds. They end their days on the sands- and even their horses and carts are generally lost there. I have helped,” said he, “to pull horses and coaches, ay, and, guides too, out of the sands. The channel,” he continued, “is seldom two days together in one place. You may make a chart one day, and, before the ink is dry, it will have shifted.” I found, indeed, by inquiry, that those who have travelled the sands longest, are always most afraid of them ; and that these silent currents, which shimmer so beautifully in the sunshine, have been “the ribs of death” to thousands. – Over Sands to the Lakes by Edwin Waugh, 1860, Internet archive
Today, signs warn visitors about the passage, stating: “This route has natural hazards, seek local guidance.” The following link shows modern images of the route (Lake Guide Sands Road), which is still crossed today with experienced guides. A 19th century visitor related that:
It is safest to cross at spring-tides; the water then is more completely drained out, and the force of the tide sweeps the bottom clean from mud and sediment. – The Sands, John Roby
Many who took this route in days of yore, such as William Wordsworth, found the trip to be so memorable that it lived in their memory for a long time. Turner created a number of striking images of the dangerous crossing. In all of them, the pedestrians and riders stayed close to the coach as guides gauged how and where the sands had shifted with the last tides or storms. Brogs, or broken branches of furze, left by previous guides visually led the way. You can see a few of them placed in the lower right corner of Turner’s painting below.
In this dramatic painting, Turner shows the Lancaster coach struggling across the sands and being overtaken by the incoming tide in a rainstorm. (Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery). One can imagine the panic of the passengers upon seeing the incoming water, and the struggles of the horses as they pulled their heavy loads along the soft sands.
Painter David Cox also painted the Lancaster Sands crossing. His images are less romantic than Turner’s, but dramatic nevertheless: Lancaster Sands by David Cox, 1835. The route through the sands were ever-changing. The guides tested the way daily, looking for shifts in the channels and for quick sand, but even the most experienced could not prevent the drowning of carriages and coaches and the deaths of people who were caught by the incoming tides or who were trapped in quagmires. Graves in local cemeteries are testament to the many lives that were lost during these crossings.
David Cox, Sketch for Crossing Lancaster Sands. Image @Tate Britain
By the mid-19th century, the railroads provided a safer and faster route. Today, the crossing over the sands is a voluntary one and taken for the experience or thrill, not out of necessity.
Image of a carriage traversing the Sands in high tides from Waugh’s book.
More on the topic:
This site shows modern images of the Lancaster Sands: Sands Road at Low Water
Old Cumbria Gazzeteer: Lancaster Sands Road
Jane Austen's World 
Wow! How extraordinary that mention of this hasn’t come my way before. Great sleuthing.
I can just see some young men having bets about who could cross safely in the most perilous of times. Also, can see some young heir losing his life because he thought he didn’t need a guide.
fascinating but scary.
Elizabeth Gaskell knew spent time at Silverdale near Morecambe Bay and did some of her writing there. The Sexton’s Hero – a short story, features the sinking sands. My grandfather was riding a horse on the sands when a fog came down (in 1920’s or 30’s). He was able to find his way to safety when he heard a train going over he viaduct so then knew which direction he was facing. Prince Philip took a coach and horses across the sands in the late 70’s I think. They are still treacherous and require a guide if you want to cross them. Thank you for all your fascinating posts Vic. I poach and post them often onto Jane Austen Circle Singapore. Please check us out.
Google Earth show the trip from Lancaster to Grange is 27.9 miles and the journey takes 41 minutes, that’s 2012, I can’t imagine how long the trip would have taken back in the 19th century and beyond.
I also can’t imagine why people would be making this journey back then. Obviously by crossing the sands they cut off many miles it must have been of great necessity for them to attempt the crossing.
Remember how aghast Elizabeth is when Mr Darcy suggests that Mrs Collins must find it agreeable being so close to her family. 50 miles of good roads.
I doubt that the roads in the north of Lancashire were so good, so what would induce them to take such a perilous journey is beyond me.
I think you’ll have to do some more digging Vic and let us know who and why these people made the crossing and how often, which is only fair since you’ve aroused our curiosity and you can’t leave us suspended :o)
Excellent question! You will find most of your answers in this delightful short account: http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/54230/. Your question prompted me to make a few changes in my post to address these issues.
As you know, travel was slow going even with improved roads. Heavily laden coaches for horses walking on soft sands must have made their journeys even more difficult. One cannot imagine how tired these beasts of burden must have felt at the end of their journey, especially if pushed to pull harder due to incoming tides.
I suppose that people took this route rather than the longer one on land to save time and money. As the passage stated, only those guides who survived the longest feared the journey the most.
Thank you Vic, it was a good short story but the first part stopped shopped short of telling us why people elected to cross the sands. Coward that I am nothing would have induced me to make that voyage back then.
I would however have enjoyed making the crossing with the Duke of Edinburgh with all the back up safety measures in place. Although I have no doubt that he would have braved the trip without them.
A perfect post…fascinating, fresh historical research, and luminous paintings! What more could anyone ask.
Check this You tube clip of Prince Philip’s horse-drawn crossing (1985 – I was wrong with the date in my earlier comment). It gives an insight of what it was like in 19th Century.
Thank you for this fascinating video, Margy!
Have to register yet another “Wow” moment. I couldn’t access the Prince Philip clip from this website, and thought it was blocked to the U.S., but strangely, when you, Vic, wrote a reply thanking Margy, I could see it via that link. Watched with my jaw dropping out of my head. What an incredible thing to do. I know a bit about such tides, because when I was on an island called St. Agnes in the Scilly Isles, there’s a causeway where the water rushes in so fast a person crossing a bare sand 20-foot stretch, could get cut off on the twin island (if not worse). I started walking across, and a man on the other island shouted to me, “Go back! Run!” I thought he was nuts but the next second I was knee deep in water and went back fast, all right! I’d have had to spend half the night on a island with only two houses, and no doubt this had happened to him before. :-)
Thank you for this. It brings back childhood memories as my grandparents lived at Lancaster and tales of lost coaches – and even better ghostly lost coaches – in the bay struck a deep chord with me as a kid. The bay’s latest most famous victims were Chinese immigrant cocklers swept away by the tide only a few years back. The area also has some other fascinating historical links with the early Quakers and with slavery – the grave of Black Sambo is certainly worth googling. I never knew Turner had painted these scenes, thanks again!
Wow. Just amazing. I’m surprised they even did it
A very interesting post, but scary for me. Just reading about the crossings, shifting sands and incoming sea had my stomach churning and hands clenching!
Vic, this is fascinating. The sands are more usually known as Morecambe Bay and are still treacherous, not least because they look so inviting when the tide is out. The cockle picking tragedy claimed 21 lives in 2004. I visit Lancaster regularly, and I live near another tidal basin (Montrose, in Scotland) which is almost equally dramatic – it is well known for its wildlife, being visited by around 50,000 migrating pink-footed geese each autumn, which make a fine sight and a deafening noise.
Andrew, I found a link to the tragedy on The Guardian, 2004. It’s tragic how many young Chinese lost their lives. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/feb/06/china.uk
Andrew, I only just realized why Dorothy L. Sayers, in her “Have His Carcase,” which is certainly all about shifting sands, calls the villain “Morecambe.” Hilarious! Your comment made me want to live in England (as I always have wanted, do want, and will want) more than ever. Something about a people who know about 50,000 migrating pink-footed geese…
Count me in as one among many US citizens who would love to live in England, Diana, if even for a short time. Such a fascinating, varied, & rich heritage!
Fascinating! I’ve never heard anything like this before. If money, or the lack thereof, was an inducement. wouldn’t that be mitigated by the amount of money they’d have had to pay the guides? It all sounds so strange to me.
Thanks for your research, Vic and Margy. It’s amazing to me that people would have risked the tides and quicksand.
It is absolutely amazing what I learn from Jane Austen lovers! Great post!!