Everyone heads for the Lake District fells. Almost nobody walks the coast just west of them — a low, wind-scoured strip of towns, slag heaps and sea cliffs between the fells and the Solway Firth that is arguably the most overlooked shoreline in England. A three-day hike along the England Coast Path makes the case for it.
The route runs about 23 miles from Maryport south to St Bees, though diversions and town-wandering add plenty more. Maryport itself deserves half a day before setting off: the Romans built a fort here (they called it Alauna), and the Senhouse museum holds Britain's largest single-site collection of Roman altars and inscriptions. There's also an LS Lowry trail through the streets he painted, with panels honouring local artists Sheila Fell and Percy Kelly.
Day one is an easy seven miles to Workington, along a beach marked only by a line of kelp, through dunes of flowering sea kale and clouds of butterflies — West Cumbria is the only place in northern England where the small blue flies. Terns, oystercatchers and gulls keep you company while industrial plants and old terraces line the ridge above. Stay at Hunday Manor, a country house hotel above town with views back to the fells.
Day two is the longest stretch, roughly 12 miles to Whitehaven, climbing over the Howe (a hill made of industrial slag, topped with a memorial crucifix) and through the tidy village of Harrington — where the railway runs close enough that you can always bail out and hop on a train — then under dramatic sandstone cliffs into town. Whitehaven is the trip's reward: a former tobacco and coal port, once sadly the fifth most active British port in the transatlantic slave trade, now a handsome mix of Georgian mansions, Victorian lighthouses and the chimney known as the Candlestick. The Beacon museum covers the history well, and there's good food at The Peddler and Zest. The new Edge hotel — 16 ensuite rooms over the marina, doubles from £117 B&B, with underfloor heating powered by air-source heat and solar — is pitched squarely at walkers and cyclists.
The final leg to St Bees currently requires an inland diversion because of coastal erosion, a recurring feature on this stretch. It's worth it: St Bees Head delivers sheer cliffs, secret coves and nesting kittiwakes, plus fulmars, ravens and kestrels — and almost no other walkers. Where the path meets the new Coast to Coast National Trail, the crowds peel off inland towards Ennerdale and Helvellyn, leaving the coast gloriously quiet.
For anyone who has done the Lakes and wants solitude, history and a genuinely different side of Cumbria, this is an easy weekend: the Cumbrian Coast Line from Carlisle serves the whole route, and Stagecoach DayRider and Explorer passes make the logistics simple. Come for the seabirds and Lowry, stay for the emptiness.