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Places to stay

Silecroft

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Tourist Information:-
The Railway Station, Millom. Tel: 01229 772555

This village, and the nearby Kirksanton, came under the control of Millom Castle in the Middle Ages. The taxes to the king were easily covered by one item - salt.
Sea water which came over the dunes was trapped behind them in salt beds (now a golf course) and dried in the sun. The deposits were then cleansed with pure water from nearby Whicham Beck.

Not one style of house here, but a variety of stone houses, farm buildings, bungalows, and terrace houses, most of which were built originally to house the railway workers together with the employees of the small local ironworks.
     The oldest house here has a well in its kitchen. Cobble walls line the streets between the houses, and it still has its own railway station.
     The beach here is safe and popular with visitors and local alike...beach combing is a popular sport, often turning up early Roman flints.
     Silecroft has its own hill...Black Combe, lying to the north, and which besides being a perfect beacon hill, also acts as a shelter from the worst of the winter weather. The hill, just a few feet short of a mountain, got it's name in the early Middle Ages. Although it has a vaguely volcanic look from certain angles, it is merely and upsurge of Skidday Slate which is acidic and prevents growth of anything but coarse grass. For this reason, it has always been perfect pasturage for sheep. Compared to the heavily-forested Witcham Valley below, it was without trees. Hence the original name "Bleak Camber" - bare hump. Interestingly, the Old English bleak (simply meaning "without colour or feature" was the origin of the words "black" and "bleach". Whether black or white is colourless merely depends upon your point of view.