Of all of the many places visited by the great Victorian painter JMW Turner on his travels around England and Europe, Heysham in Lancashire appears quite prominently to have captivated the artist in a way that only somewhere like old Heysham can, as we see in his painting the depiction of a verdant idyll with its rolling wooded hill and inspiring view across the bay to the distant blue mountains of Cumberland (Cumbria).

The village of Heysham is approximately thirty-minutes walk from the West End of Morecambe, and geographically its position can be described as being at a very specific point on Morecambe Bay, directly between the "Inner Bay" and "Outer Bay" when you consider, both topographically and visually, that the ancient hill-top chapel overlooks both of these areas. From this vantage point you can survey these two different regions of the bay.

The grade-listed ruined chapel has existed on this site since around the 8th Century and includes the eerie rock-cut graves nearby. From here the outer-bay stretches all the way to Fleetwood on one side and the Isle of Walney on the other, with a busy ferry route passing through its centre from the nearby port, travelling to the Isle of Man along the edge of what the ancients called 'the crooked sea'.

Only at extreme low water is it possible to walk certain parts of the outer-bay on the opposite side of the crooked sea from here at Heysham Head, whereas the inner-bay is uncovered twice daily by the tide and can be walked when the channels are safe to cross. This was also the subject of Turner's work. The tide retreats up to a certain point as you face the Irish sea, and facing inland the same low water reveals an expanse of dark rocks.

This large rocky plateau extends all the way back to Morecambe, and on some maps it goes by the name of 'old man's skear' and is also overlooked by St Peter's church which lies in a hollow close to St Patrick's chapel, both of which date back to Anglo-Saxon times. The church cemetery drops right down to the shore and is enclosed by a high stone wall to protect the land from the waves of the sea.

Together the church and chapel represent the ancient part of Heysham, long before the village began to emerge. From the date stones on some of the cottages you can see that this was in the early 1600's, long before Morecambe emerged to become the seaside town that it is today. Old Heysham remains a quaint and rather quirky place, also featuring an interesting rocky woodland trail inside what was formerly the rector's garden.

Heysham offers a nice coastal walk along its sandstone cliffs and passes by the tiniest of beaches situated not much further from the graves facing the Coniston mountains. And further along is Half-Moon Bay where a new public art sculpture best expresses the contemplative mood, Viking history and geographical placement of Heysham, as two figures sitting on a ship gaze in opposite directions.