St Bees is a coastal village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Copeland district of Cumbria, England, on the Irish Sea. Within the parish is St Bees Head which is the only Heritage Coast between Wales and Scotland and a Site of Special Scientific Interest. The Headland is also an RSPB bird reserve which is the only cliff-nesting seabird colony in north-west England. St Bees Lighthouse stands on the North Head which is the most westerly point of Northern England. St Bees is a popular holiday destination due to the coastline and proximity to the Western Lake District. In the village there is St Bees Priory dating from 1120, and St Bees School founded in 1583. The Wainwright Coast to Coast Walk starts from St Bees and the National Trail, the England Coast Path, runs along the coast. It has a railway station served by the Cumbrian Coast Railway. Early history Evidence of Mesolithic and Bronze Age habitation has been found in St Bees, but nothing of the Roman occupation, even though St Bees Head would have been a prominent observation point. The name St Bees is a corruption of the Norse name for the village, which is given in the earliest charter of the Priory as "Kyrkeby becok", which can be translated as the "Church town of Bega", relating to the local Saint Bega. She was said to be an Irish princess who fled across the Irish Sea in the ninth century to St Bees to avoid an enforced marriage. Carved stones at the priory show that Irish-Norse Vikings settled here in the tenth century. The Normans did not reach Cumberland until 1092, and when they took over the local lordships, William Meschin, Lord of Egremont, used the existing religious site to found a Benedictine priory for a prior and six monks sometime between 1120 and 1135. The priory was subordinate to the great Benedictine monastery of St Mary at York. The magnificent Norman doorway of the priory dates from just after this time; probably about 1150. The priory had a great influence on the area. The monks worked the land, fished, and extended the priory buildings. The ecclesiastical parish of St Bees was large and stretched to Ennerdale, Loweswater, Wasdale and Eskdale. The coffin routes from these outlying areas to the mother church in St Bees can still be followed in places. The priory was closed during