Coastwalk

St Anne's-on-Sea → Preston

Distance: 16.8 miles
Ascent: 250 metres
Duration: 5 hours 24 minutes

Grim
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Ah, Lytham St Anne's. I started the day with something close to a pilgrimage: walking through this pair of seaside villages.

Lytham St Anne's. Before today all I knew was you were somewhere in the north. I heard your name on an experimental pop song from the early 90s. There you were, solomly intoned over a bed of road traffic, heavy rain and an industrial dance track.

I expected something grey. I wasn't expecting it to be the residents' hair. Lytham, have you hidden your mills? St Anne's, where are your factories? The eight-lane motorway pumping diesel fumes? Is there no Jerusalem on the Moors?

For the final six miles into Preston I paced the tarmac of the A583/4. It's no M62 but it gave me some of the sounds I'd come to expect. Maybe it is grim up north after all.