Welcome

The Duddon Estuary is a hidden corner of Cumbria not as well known as its nearby (and much larger) neighbour – Morecambe Bay. Millom born poet and author Norman Nicholson evoked the character of the estuary and its tidal margins in his poem ‘On Duddon Marsh’:

This is the shore, the line dividing
The dry land from the waters Europe
From the Atlantic; this is the mark
That God laid down on the third day.
Twice a year the high tide sliding,
Unwrapping like a roll of oil cloth, reaches
The curb of the mud, leaving a dark
Swipe of grease, a scaled out hay
Of wrack and grass and gutterweed. Then
For full three hundred tides the bare
Turf is unwatered except for rain;
Blown wool is dry as baccy; tins
Glint in the sedge with not a sight of man
For two miles round to drop them there.
But once in spring and once again
In autumn, here’s where the sea begins.

The Duddon Estuary Partnership aims to bring everyone with an interest in the estuary together to exchange ideas and work for the good of the Bay.