St Bees and Flimby Stations - Cumbrian Coast Line (13th & 20th July 2022)

It’s back to the Cumbrian Coast Railway for this video as I visit the beautiful historic coastal village of St Bees. Following in the footsteps of George Bradshaw I took the opportunity of visiting St Bees Priory along with one of England’s oldest and most famous Independent Schools. Previous ‘Old St Beghians’ include the actor, comedian and writer Rowan Atkinson. St Bees is one of the most popular destinations on the Cumbrian Coast thanks to its long sandy beach and towering cliffs. It is also the official start of the Wainwright Coast to Coast Walk to Robin Hood’s Bay on the North Yorkshire Coast. The second part of my journey was a visit to Flimby Station. Flimby is located on the Cumbrian Coast between the towns of Maryport to the north and Workington to the south. The railway station has served the village since 1846. It is a request stop and I learnt about the important role that the station played between 30th November 2009 and 28th May 2010 with transporting huge numbers of passengers into and out of Workington in the aftermath of extensive flooding. The Northside road bridge was destroyed and the Calva road bridge was structurally damaged leaving the railway bridge as the only means of crossing the River Derwent at Workington. I was also interested to learn more about the special project set up by pupils at the local Primary School during the first COVID Lockdown in 2020 by encouraging the local community to go out and explore Flimby, take photographs of their favourite places, and to put these forward for display at the railway station. I hope you enjoy watching the video.