Heysham Head

Heysham Head is a sandstone headland rising above Morecambe Bay, best known for the ruin of St Patrick's Chapel. Local legend says St Patrick came ashore here in the 5th century after a shipwreck and founded a chapel; the building that survives, thought to have been raised at least two centuries later, is a Grade I listed Scheduled Ancient Monument measuring just seven by 2.2 metres, with a curved Anglo-Saxon-style doorway. Just south of it lie eight graves cut into the rock, several of them body-shaped with sockets that may have held wooden crosses, thought to date from around the 11th century and believed to be unique. An excavation below them in 1993 recovered more than 1,200 artefacts, showing the site was occupied around 12,000 years ago. The Barrows, an area of coastal grassland and woodland beside the chapel, was once a garden of the picturesque era. Dogs are welcome under close control. The Trust warns of steep cobbled paths and stone steps that are slippery after rain, and the path down to the beach can be rutted.