Formby Beach
Formby Beach on the Merseyside coast north of Liverpool is the finest and most ecologically important stretch of coastal dune and beach on the northwest coast of England, a National Trust property whose combination of the extensive sandy beach, the tall dune system planted with Scots pine, the red squirrel reserve in the pine woodland and the ancient human footprints preserved in the foreshore peat creates a coastal nature reserve of exceptional variety and national importance. The red squirrel colony at Formby is the most visited in England, the squirrels becoming remarkably accustomed to visitors at the nut feeding areas.
The pinewoods planted on the dunes in the late nineteenth century provide the habitat for one of the largest red squirrel populations in England, the isolation of the Formby woodland from other red squirrel populations by the surrounding urban development having maintained a population uncontaminated by the grey squirrel competition that has reduced red squirrels across most of Britain. The squirrel watching facilities in the pinewood provide some of the most reliable red squirrel encounters available anywhere in England.
The ancient human footprints preserved in the intertidal peat at the northern end of the beach represent one of the most significant palaeontological discoveries on the northwest coast, the footprints of Mesolithic and Neolithic people and animals preserved in the peat in conditions that allow individual prints to be identified by age, sex and even gait in some cases. The prints are revealed and covered by the tidal action that exposed them and their significance for understanding prehistoric human activity on this coast is considerable.