Red squirrels, Iron Men and 22 miles of sand: a Sefton coast day out with kids, by car or by train
Crosby's 100 iron figures, Formby's pinewoods and dunes, Ainsdale's drive on beach and Southport at the end. How to do the Sefton coast in a day with children, with the tide times, the car parks and the one thing that is closed.
The Sefton coast is 22 miles of sand with a railway line running up the back of it, which makes it the easiest big day out in the North West to do without a car and the easiest to get wrong with one. Here is the day, south to north, with the parking and the tides.
Stop one: Crosby and the Iron Men
Start at Crosby Beach, where Antony Gormley's Another Place puts 100 cast iron figures along three kilometres of sand, all looking out to sea. Children count them, name them and ask why they are naked. There is no charge. The trick is the tide: the figures disappear for about an hour either side of high water, so check the Gladstone Dock tide times first, and stay within 50 metres of the promenade, because the council warns of soft sand and mud and the beach is red flagged for swimming.
Park at Hall Road or the leisure centre car park on Mariners Road, or walk from Blundellsands and Crosby station. Crosby Lakeside Adventure Centre on the marine lake next door runs booked watersports courses in season and has a pay and display car park at £1 for two hours.
Stop two: Formby, squirrels and dunes
Twenty minutes up the road, Formby is the National Trust's pinewoods and dunes, home to red squirrels that are wild, shy and under no obligation to appear. We have turned the walk into a seven item mission. The beach and woods are free; the car parks at Victoria Road and Lifeboat Road are £9 for non members, and Lifeboat Road has the step free boardwalk to the beach. Toilets are at the car parks in opening hours. Freshfield station is a walk down Victoria Road for anyone on the train.
Stop three: Ainsdale, the beach you drive onto
Ainsdale is the wide beach south of Southport where cars park on the sand from April to September for £10 a day, with RNLI lifeguards on a flagged area from late March to mid September and a toilet block with a Changing Places facility. The beach car park shuts on high tides and in bad weather, so this is another one where the tide table comes first. Dogs are banned from the main entrance area in summer. Inland, Lunt Meadows near Sefton village is a wetland reserve with bird hides and £4 parking, wellies advised.
Stop four: Southport
Finish in Southport. The Atkinson on Lord Street has a free museum with an ancient Egypt room, closed Sundays. Hesketh Park has gardens, a cafe, toilets and an observatory that opens free on set dates. If the weather has turned, Splash World on the seafront is the indoor water park, 90 minute sessions sold online only, £13.50 for a junior aged 6 to 15. Adventure Coast, the old Pleasureland, has closed for the 2026 season apart from the golf and miniature railway over half term, so it is a summer plan rather than a November one.
The FamDays verdict
Iron Men at low tide, squirrels before lunch, Southport for the afternoon. Done by train it costs you two beaches, a free museum and whatever the chippy charges. Done by car, check the tide table twice.
