Near the mouth of the River Lune in Lancashire, not a dozen miles south of Morecambe Bay, lies the little village of Sunderland, a few isolated cottages originally built by river pilots who were responsible for guiding vessels up the Lune to the port of Lancaster. Sunderland is reached only by a tiny lane across the saltings from nearby Overton, and frequently finds itself isolated from the outside world at high tide.

Tidal islands
There are islands which never lose their island status. And then there are islands which come and go with every tide. Such fragments of land, which are only proper islands at low tide, are called drying islands or tidal islands. We look at some ...