Happy Mount Park
A proper old-fashioned seaside park: the splash park is the summer draw, with trampolines, adventure golf and a cafe for the flask-and-chips crowd. Pair it with an ice cream on the prom.
The Stone Jetty & Eric Morecambe Statue
Morecambe, Lancashire
The Stone Jetty is what remains of Morecambe's old harbour and railway terminus, built around 1853 and rebuilt in the mid-90s as part of the sea defences. It is now the best free hour on this coast: the TERN Project's steel cormorants, gannets and razorbills line the route, and the paving is set with a maze, hopscotch, a word search and a giant compass that children treat as a course to be completed.
Start behind the Midland Hotel, walk out to the cafe at the end, then follow the prom to the statue of Eric Morecambe, mid comic pose, unveiled by the Queen in 1999. The queue for the photo is short and the statue is exactly as cheerful as you want it to be. Morecambe went big on birds because Eric was a birdwatcher, and the whole seafront trail hangs off that joke.
Bring binoculars if you have them. The bay is one of the country's great birdwatching spots at low tide, and the Lakeland fells across the water do the rest of the scenery for free.
What it costs: Everything here is free apart from the cafe and parking.
Know before you go
- It is exposed out on the jetty end - a calm town street can be a gale over the water, so take coats even in August.
- Promenade renovation work has moved or removed a few of the TERN sculptures. If a particular one matters, ask at the visitor information centre first.
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Heysham Coast and St Patrick's Chapel
Eight body shaped graves cut straight into the rock beside a ruined eighth century chapel, on a National Trust headland above Morecambe Bay. Free, but the paths are steep and cobbled and no friend of a pushchair.
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