THE role of Furness Abbey in the early development of mining and quarrying was explored in a talks day at Lancaster University. 

Local historian Alan Crosby was speaking at an event organised by the history department's Regional Heritage Centre. Furness Abbey was one of the big players in the North West in developing the use of mines, quarries and mills on its lands. 

He said: "We have some very interesting examples of quarrying as a commercial enterprise." 

The 16th century saw an expansion in stone working and quarrying but the raw material still had relatively little financial value. 

Dr Crosby said: "Stone was often regarded as so ubiquitous in the North West that it was disregarded in deeds, conveyances and leases." 

Cumbrian manorial tenants were able to take stone for houses, farm buildings and repairs but not to sell it or remove it from the manor lands. 

As the region's population grew, more limestone was needed to sweeten marginal land as a soil dressing and for use on walls as lime wash and lime mortar. 

He said: "The lime kiln becomes a characteristic feature of the limestone district." 

The lime was loaded into panniers and moved by pack animals. 

The pennines also provided quarried millstones for corn mills which needed a block and tackle to get them on to a cart for transport to Lancashire and even to Ireland by the late 16th century. 

In the 15th century Furness Abbey had corn mills, fulling mills, iron mines, salt pans and tanneries. There were dozens of sites in industrial use by the monks, including at Millom, Walney, Coniston and Windermere. 

The monks had been granted land at Tulketh, Preston, in 1127 by King Stephen but some after established themselves at Furness. Dr Crosby said: "It was remote but it had rescourses and eventually became the second richest Cistercian abbey in the country."

It had coastal fisheries, pasture at Coniston, fish from Elterwater and iron ore from Dalton. 

He said: "There is a remarkable density of commercial activities going on." Iron ore mining pre-dated the Norman Conquest and the arrival of the monks in Furness. 

The Furness place name, Orgrave, meaning "ore digging" can be found in the Domesday Book. Other places with ore outcrops on the surface were investigated by early miners - such as Cartmel and the Furness fells, the red-stained tarns of the Lake District and Humphrey Head, near Kents Bank. He said: "In the south of Furness you get vast amounts of iron ore." 

What the area was short of was fuel to smelt the ore into iron. 

Ore was often taken to Coniston and Windermere where there was charcoal available from extensive woodland to use in open hearth bloomeries. 

On the western shores of Coniston Water, towards Torver, there are dozens of sites of early bloomeries. Furness Abbey worked several bloomeries at Hawkshead. 

He said: "It takes several tons of charcoal to smelt one ton of iron, so it is more economical to take the ore to the charcoal." 

When early blast furnaces were developed at the start of the 18th century, they stayed close to the charcoal fuel supplies at places such as Backbarrow, Duddon Furnace and Cunsey Beck, on the shores of Windermere. 

He said: "All the woodlands of Furness became treasures and were carefully protected."