button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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Page 37:-
bark, and limestone. The principal inns are kept by the guides, who regularly pass to and from Lancaster, on Sunday, Tuesday, and Friday, in every week.
  iron mines
Make an excursion to the west, three miles, and visit the greatest iron-mines in England. At Whitrigs the works are carried on with much spirit, by driving of levels into the bosom of the mountain. The ore is found in a limestone stratum mixed with a variety of spars of a dirty colour. There is much quartz in some of the works that admits of a high polish. At present the works in Stoneclose and Aldgarly are the most flourishing that have been known in Furness. This mineral is not hurtful to any animal or vegetable. The verdure is remarkably fine about the workings, and no one ever suffered by drinking the water in the mines, though discoloured and much impregnated with the ore.
Furness Abbey
Proceed by Dalton to the magnificent ruins of Furness-Abbey, and there
'See the wild waste of all devouring-years,
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples spread,
The very tombs now vanish like the dead.'
This Abbey was founded by Stephen, Earl of Mortaign and Boulogne, afterwards King
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gazetteer links
button -- Ulverston
button -- Whitriggs Iron Mine (?)

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