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Furness Abbey, Barrow in Furness

Firstly I am amazed to see that Furness Abbey has never been mentioned on this forum- yet it is only about a 1 hour drive from Windermere in the Lake District (and not much longer by bus).

It is an English Heritage site, and was one of the most important Abbeys in North West England and the first to be dissolved by Henry VIII.

The night stair has been re-instated (in timber rather than the original stone), having been destroyed almost 490 years ago, thus giving access to the dormitory and a new viewing platform over the site- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c72l0k7de2ro

You can stay at the Abbey House Hotel (very close to the Abbey)- it was originally built in 1914 as a guesthouse for Vickers Shipbuilders at Barrow.

While in the area you can also visit Dalton Castle (a National Trust site) and Barrow Dock Museum.

Posted by
1232 posts

Stuart - I don’t think I’m surprised at all. I bet the whole Furness peninsula is not mentioned in Rick’s books. And to be fair I imagine the vast majority of Britons haven’t been near either. They should though. It’s one of the many, many areas of the U.K. with lots of interest and hardly any visitors. They are all in the Cotswolds, Cornwall, York, Edinburgh and Skye if they get out of London.