The Solway Firth is an inlet on the west coast of

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-west coast of continental Europe, consisting of the countries England, Scotland, and Wales. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the List of European ...

, forming part of the border between

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

and

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

. The firth (a Scottish term for an inlet of the sea) divides

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

(including the Solway Plain) from

Dumfries and Galloway Dumfries and Galloway (; ) is one of the 32 unitary council areas of Scotland, located in the western part of the Southern Uplands. It is bordered by East Ayrshire, South Ayrshire, and South Lanarkshire to the north; Scottish Borders to the no ...

. The

Isle of Man The Isle of Man ( , also ), or Mann ( ), is a self-governing British Crown Dependency in the Irish Sea, between Great Britain and Ireland. As head of state, Charles III holds the title Lord of Mann and is represented by a Lieutenant Govern ...

is also very near to the firth. The firth comprises part of the

Irish Sea The Irish Sea is a body of water that separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is linked to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel and to the Inner Seas off the West Coast of Scotland in the north by the North Ch ...

. The firth's

coast A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

line is characterised by lowland hills and small mountains. It is a mainly rural area, with mostly small villages and settlements (such as Powfoot). Fishing, hill farming, and some arable farming play a large part in the local economy, although tourism is increasing. The northern part of the English coast of the Solway Firth was designated as an

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is one of 46 areas of countryside in England, Wales, or Northern Ireland that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Since 2023, the areas in England an ...

, known as the Solway Coast, in 1964. Construction of the Robin Rigg Wind Farm in the firth began in 2007. Within the firth, there are some

salt marshes A salt marsh, saltmarsh or salting, also known as a coastal salt marsh or a tidal marsh, is a coastal ecosystem in the upper coastal intertidal zone between land and open Seawater, saltwater or brackish water that is regularly flooded by the ti ...

and mud flats that can be dangerous, due to their frequently shifting patches of

quicksand Quicksand (also known as sinking sand) is a colloid consisting of fine granular material (such as sand, silt or clay) and water. It forms in saturated loose sand when the sand is suddenly agitated. When water in the sand cannot escape, it crea ...

Wildlife

There are over of

Sites of Special Scientific Interest A Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) in Great Britain, or an Area of Special Scientific Interest (ASSI) in the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland, is a conservation designation denoting a protected area in the United Kingdom and Isle ...

(SSSIs) in the area of the firth (one of which is Salta Moss), as well as national nature reserves — at Caerlaverock and in

. On the Cumbrian side, much of the coastline has been designated an

(AONB). The Solway Coast’s AONB has two separate sections: the first runs westward from just north of

Carlisle Carlisle ( , ; from ) is a city in the Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. Carlisle's early history is marked by the establishment of a settlement called Luguvalium to serve forts along Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. Due to its pro ...

to Skinburness; the second runs south from the hamlet of Beckfoot, past Mawbray and Allonby, to Crosscanonby. In 2013, the honeycomb worm and blue mussel were designated as targets of conservation efforts, and Allonby Bay (an inlet of the Solway Firth) was put forward as a candidate for a

Marine Conservation Zone A Marine Conservation Zone (MCZ) is a type of marine nature reserve in United Kingdom, UK waters. They were established under the Marine and Coastal Access Act 2009, Marine and Coastal Access Act (2009) and are areas designated with the aim to prot ...

Long-distance walking route

A long-distance walking route, the Annandale Way, runs through Annandale, from the source of the River Annan, in the Moffat Hills, to the Solway Firth; it was opened in September 2009.

Islands in the Solway

Unlike other parts of the west coast of Scotland, the Solway Firth has only a few islands. They are: * Hestan Island * Rough Island * Little Ross * The so-called Isle of Whithorn (which is actually a peninsula) *The Islands of Fleet

Rivers

The Solway Firth is the

estuary An estuary is a partially enclosed coastal body of brackish water with one or more rivers or streams flowing into it, and with a free connection to the open sea. Estuaries form a transition zone between river environments and maritime enviro ...

of the River Eden and the River Esk. Below are links to lists of the other rivers that flow into the firth: * in England *

in Scotland IN, In or in may refer to: Dans * India (country code IN) * Indiana, United States (postal code IN) * Ingolstadt, Germany (license plate code IN) * In, Russia, a town in the Jewish Autonomous Oblast Businesses and organizations * Independen ...

History

The name 'Solway' (recorded as ''Sulewad'' in 1218) is of Scandinavian origin, and was originally the name of a ford across the mud flats at Eskmouth. The first element of the name is probably from the Old Norse word 'pillar', referring to the Lochmaben Stane, though it may instead be from , meaning ' solan goose'. and both have long vowels, but the early spellings of Solway indicate a short vowel in the first element. This may be due to the

shortening Shortening is any fat that is a solid at room temperature and is used to make crumbly pastry and other food products. The idea of shortening dates back to at least the 18th century, well before the invention of modern, shelf-stable vegetable ...

of an originally long vowel in the

Middle English Middle English (abbreviated to ME) is a form of the English language that was spoken after the Norman Conquest of 1066, until the late 15th century. The English language underwent distinct variations and developments following the Old English pe ...

period but may also represent an original short vowel. If this is the case, the first element may be , an unrecorded word cognate with

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

'muddy, pool', or a derivative of , meaning 'to swill'. The second element of the name is from the

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

, meaning 'ford' (which is

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymological ancestor in a common parent language. Because language change can have radical effects on both the s ...

with the modern English word ''wade''). The area had three fords: the Annan or Bowness Wath, the Dornock Wath (once called the Sandywathe), and the main one —the Solewath (also called the Solewath or the Sulewad). A wooden lighthouse was built in 1841 at Barnkirk Point (). It was destroyed by fire in 1960. On 9 March 1876, a 79-ton French lugger ''St. Pierre'', was stranded - and finally declared lost - on Blackshaw Bank, an ill-defined feature which extends for a considerable distance on both sides of the channel of the River Nith. Between 1869 and 1921, the estuary was crossed by the Solway Junction Railway on a 1780 m (5850 ft) iron

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide ...

. The line was built to carry iron ore from the

Whitehaven Whitehaven is a town and civil parish in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. It is a port on the north-west coast, and lies outside the Lake District National parks of England and Wales, National Park. ...

area to

Lanarkshire Lanarkshire, also called the County of Lanark (; ), is a Counties of Scotland, historic county, Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area and registration county in the Central Lowlands and Southern Uplands of Scotland. The county is no l ...

and was financed and operated by the Caledonian Railway of Scotland. After the railway, which was not a financial success, ceased operating in 1921, the railway bridge became a popular footpath, enabling residents of Scotland to easily cross into

, where

alcoholic drink Drinks containing alcohol (drug), alcohol are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and Distilled beverage, spirits—with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. Drinks with less than 0.5% are sometimes considered Non-al ...

was legally available seven days a week. (Scotland was dry on Sundays at the time.) The viaduct was demolished between 1931 and 1933. Margaret Wilson was a Scottish Covenanter who was executed by drowning in the Solway Firth in 1685. She was tied to a stake in the water and left to drown with the incoming tide. Margaret Wilson lived during a time of great turmoil in Scotland, with the Covenanter movement opposing the episcopalian governance of the Church of Scotland. The Covenanters sought to maintain their Presbyterian faith and resist the authority of the monarch. John Everett Millais created an illustration, a wood engraving, depicting the Scottish martyr Margaret Wilson, tied to a stake in the surf at Solway, because, as a Covenanter, refusing to acknowledge James II as head of the church. It was engraved by the workshop of Joseph Swain and published in '' Once a Week'' in 1862. Of further interest is John Everett Millais' painting, The Knight Errant (1871) original section was later sewn into another canvas and exhibited in 1872 as ''The Martyr of The Solway'' (Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; plate), which is similar to the woodcut noted here. Margaret_Wilson_-_JE_Millais

The

Ministry of Defence A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...

had by 1999 fired more than 6,350

depleted uranium Depleted uranium (DU), also referred to in the past as Q-metal, depletalloy, or D-38, is uranium with a lower content of the fissile isotope Uranium-235, 235U than natural uranium. The less radioactive and non-fissile Uranium-238, 238U is the m ...

rounds into the Solway Firth from its testing range at Dundrennan Range.

In popular culture

* The Solway Firth has been used as the location for films. For example, the 1973 film '' The Wicker Man'' was filmed around

Kirkcudbright Kirkcudbright ( ; ) is a town at the mouth of the River Dee, Galloway, River Dee in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, southwest of Castle Douglas and Dalbeattie. A former royal burgh, it is the traditional county town of Kirkcudbrightshire. His ...

and Burrow Head on the Wigtownshire coast. * In July 2019, the American metal band Slipknot released a song called “

Solway Firth The Solway Firth is an inlet on the west coast of Great Britain, forming part of the border between England and Scotland. The firth (a Scottish term for an inlet of the sea) divides Cumbria (including the Solway Plain) from Dumfries and Gallow ...

” that is named after the firth.

Notes

References

Slipknot 2019 song. "Solway Firth" from the Album "We Are Not Your Kind"

External links

Solway Shore StoriesThe Powfoot Spa
{{Authority control Landforms of Dumfries and Galloway Landforms of Cumbria Firths of Scotland Estuaries of England Estuaries of Scotland Bodies of water of the Irish Sea Special Areas of Conservation in England Special Areas of Conservation in Scotland Anglo-Scottish border Protected areas of Cumbria Protected areas of Dumfries and Galloway Natural regions of England