St Bees:

Continuing with my love of West Cumbria we recently decided to take a trip to St Bees, and what a breathtakingly beautiful day out for the whole family this is. St Bees Village is only a few miles from The Lake District National Park and it is an ideal place to explore when hiding from those summer Lake District crowds. It is also the starting point of the Wainwright Coast to Coast Walk to Robin Hood’s Bay, the paths alongside this coastline are fantastic.

St Bees Bay offers parking, a promenade, play area, cafe, beach shop and toilets. St Bees Beachfront Car Park offers direct access to the Bay, the postcode for this car park is CA27 0EY.

The play area was a huge hit with my children. It is rare to find a park that offers something for all of the ages of my children but this play area has something for younger children, and older children.

The beach extends from the main beach area to Seamill Beach. This one mile walk can be accessed from the main beach by walking along the sand, or if the tide is in, along the gold course cliff paths.

Read below to see how we made our day trip even more exciting!

Whitehaven to St Bees on the train.

The walk from St Bees station to the beach.

The beach!

A Full Day Out!

For this particular trip we decided to extend our visit and make it a full day out. Our children love trains and they are constantly asking when are they able to go on a train journey! So, for todays trip to  we decided to reach our destination via train. The children were extremely excited, the only disappointment is that they wanted to stay on the train for even longer!

We parked at Whitehaven train station, £3 all day. Postcode: CA28 6AX. From here we got on the next train to Barrow-in-Furness, it was only a 9minute journey to St Bees. This is perhaps where we went wrong, the children were hoping for longer on the train – next time we could extend this by getting on the train from Workington…. or perhaps even from Carlisle!

Having arrived at St Bees it is a 3/4 mile walk down to the beach. The path is well surfaced and pram accessible. Taking the children on the train, as well as visiting the beach, really did add so much more excitement to our family day out. The train was really very easy, it was quiet and clean and I managed to get my off road pram on, and off, the train with ease.

The beach itself was wonderful, the children played for hours on the rocks and then enjoyed an ice cream, followed by a play on the children’s play area. By the time we got the train back to Whitehaven the children were shattered – the sign of a fantastic family fun day!

Please note, we took a picnic lunch and then enjoyed some food in Whitehaven before heading home to Carlisle. There are plenty of places for food and drinks in both St Bees and Whitehaven.

St Bees Beach.

Walking on St Bees Beach.

St Bees Outdoor Playground.

hiking household