St Patrick’s Chapel ruins, Heysham: The mythical Lancashire ruins with a heavenly view

Annunciata Elwes takes a look at St Patrick’s Chapel ruins, a Morecambe Bay landmark.

Unusual rock cut graves next to the ruins of St. Patrick's Chapel overlooking Morecambe Bay, Heysham.
Unusual rock cut graves next to the ruins of St. Patrick's Chapel overlooking Morecambe Bay, Heysham.
(Image credit: Alamy Stock Photo)

There’s a myth that the patron saint of Ireland built this chapel after a shipwreck, but no matter how good Guinness is (or isn’t) for you, he can’t have managed it 200 years after his death. The view over Morecambe Bay from this exposed clifftop is staggering and the 8th-century ruins are only a little uphill from Norman St Peter’s Church.

The ruins of St. Patrick's Chapel.

A walk around the graveyard is a reminder of how easy it is to drown when gathering cockles and mussels on this treacherous coast, but the lives of the eight buried in sandstone-hewn graves at the chapel centuries earlier are more mysterious; the graves are among Britain’s earliest examples of Christian burial and appear on the album sleeve for The Best of Black Sabbath.

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Milestones - composite image:L Neil McAllister/Alamy Stock Photo; David Ridley/Alamy; Ian Shaw/Alamy; Education Images/Getty Images; Wales heritage photos/Alamy; Graham Hardy/Alamy; Chris Cole/Alamy; Shutterstock; Jonny White/Alamy Stock Photo

Credit: Getty/Alamy/Shutterstock

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Annunciata Elwes
Annunciata Elwes (née Walton) joined Country Life after founding a literary and music festival at Milton Manor, Oxfordshire, and working at The Sunday Times Travel Magazine.