Thank you, Nigel; it's all original. It's a very sobering experience to cross the sands with the Queen's Guide, the sand pilot. It's very impressive to hear the tidal bore rushing into the estuary too. Sadly, there is a long record of misfortune on the sands recorded on the gravestones in Cartmel Priory churchyard. In 1652/53, George Fox, the founder of the Quakers, narrowly escaped disaster on the sands;
From Lancaster I returned to Robert Widders's, and: from thence I went to visit Justice West, Richard Hubberthorn accompanying me. Not knowing the way, or the danger of the Sands, we rode where, as we were afterwards told, no man ever rode before, swimming our horses over a very dangerous place. When we were come in, Justice West asked us if we did not see two men riding over the sands: "I shall have their clothes anon," said he, "for they cannot escape drowning, and I am the coroner." But when we told him that we were the men he was astonished, and wondered how we escaped drowning.