Furness Journey

I was very interested to see Stuart Maconie’s exploration of Furness last night: one of the regional history programmes for the BBC’s Great British Story series. Maconie explored the ruined abbey at Furness (recently in the news) and traced the growth of Furness industry: the railway, steelmaking and shipbuilding.

There was some great historic footage of shipbuilding at Barrow, as well as a visit to the modern works; Maconie interviewed some of the workers there.

Readers of Narrow Windows, Narrow Lives will recall that in my book I explored living and working conditions for workers in the iron and steel industries as well as cotton factories in Lancashire.

When my new book Tracing Your Lancashire Ancestors is published by Pen & Sword this autumn, you’ll be able to discover lots of tips for exploring your family tree in the historic county of Lancashire, including the Furness peninsula.


Images:
Ancient arch at Furness Abbey, Pictorial History of the County of Lancashire, 1844.

Iron Foundry, Vickers & Co., Barrow-in-Furness, early C.20th postcard. Author’s collection.