Hesketh Out Marsh and Hesketh Bank, Near Southport

Introduction

With a hike up Kinder Scout with Jordan planned for tomorrow, I selected a flat walk near the coast today.

Hesketh Out Marsh is on the south bank of the Ribble estuary, a 70 minute drive from Cheadle Hulme.

This is a seven and a half mile walk covering farmland a small suburb, and estuarine marshland. It took 3 hours plus a 15 minute lunch stop.

Hesketh Out Marsh is an RSPB reserve. Follow this link for more information about the reserve:-

https://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/reserves-a-z/hesketh-out-marsh/

The weather was dull, with a light cool breeze; fine for walking.

There are some farm tracks, and flood protection banks where it would be suitable for dogs to run off the lead, but also some farmland and suburban roads where the lead is essential.

There is a car park (beware potholes) at the RSPB reserve, postcode PR4 6XQ.

The walk is on OS Explorer Map 286.

Farmland To Hesketh Bank

I started by returning down the track I’d driven up. In the woods is what appeared to be a hidden outdoor adventure shooting range!

There is much ploughing and planting going on. I liked this!

I crossed the road and negotiated the little used path through Bank Farm and over fields to Wright Farm. Lots of horses in the fields, and I was quite taken with this little one.

Before arriving at the glasshouses there was a pretty area of unused land.

After making my way along the roads into Hesketh Bank, a small commuter town, I came upon the West Lancashire Light Railway, an enthusiast’s paradise, with just 400m of track, which you don’t see from the road.

After turning towards the river and passing the rather dilapidated Becconsall Hall, I came to a pretty chapel with graveyard.

The River Douglas

I was suddenly surprised to be faced with yacht masts!

This is a riverside marina.

Turning left immediately through the marina entrance led to a gate out onto the flood defence bank of the River Douglas. The bank runs parallel to the Douglas all the way around to Hesketh Out Marsh, continuing parallel to the River Ribble after the Douglas meets it.

Inside the bank the land is very fertile and arable farming is much in evidence.

The ditches are served from creeks and sluices passing through the flood defence from the river. A good place for these shelduck to feed.

With binoculars, I could see avocets feeding in the pools on the far side of the river, but my phone couldn’t get a decent picture, and this video doesn’t provide too much help, but I can confirm the white dot in the centre is an avocet!!!

Hesketh Out Marsh

The bank continues here, but now the RSPB has created more pools and lagoons behind a fence.

I spot a bird flitting along the posts – a beautiful male wheatear, no doubt on passage to its nesting grounds in Scotland, Iceland or Greenland.

Back in the lagoons, the plentiful oystercatchers and shelducks are joined here by a black-tailed godwit, with its extraordinarily long straight bill!

And the birds are oblivious to it, but in the distance, up the Fylde coast is Blackpool Tower!

As I near the car park, I come to this reserve’s iron sculpted sign – the outline of an arctic tern.

This is a very different environment from so many of my walks, and not really one for the avid hiker. It’s totally flat, and very easy, yet outside of the town and boatyard, I barely saw a soul, so in irs own way it is wild and remote.

And it has avocets!

And Finally….

This came up on my random playlist on the way home.

What A Tune.

Zombie by The Cranberries.

Dolores O’Riordan died in 2018 aged 46… sad.