Ravenglass is the only coastal village in the Lake District, on the estuary of three rivers, and half way between Barrow-in-Furness and Whitehaven. This location made it an important Roman naval base for 300 years. With its old cottages gathered on the shoreline it’s the sort of place I love, where buildings meet the sea in dramatic fashion, in fact Main Street is a cul-de-sac, running onto the shore at the end! I painted this low tide picture during a weekend when I painted there all day for two days and counted less than 20 other people walking the shore in that time. Despite only having a population of around 250, Ravenglass has two railway stations. One is on the British Rail Cumbrian Coast line from Carnforth to Carlisle, via Whitehaven, while the other is the terminus of the narrow gauge tourist railway running up Eskdale into the Lakeland fells. No Toytown railway, this, it carries 120,000 passengers a year.