Nostalgia Wednesday June 05 SPREAD - Use 9 pic 300 word template

Text for spread on Barrow villages

YOU can find out about the history and development of Barrow’s villages in a new exhibition at Barrow library in Ramsden Square.

The display draws on material in Barrow Archives and can be seen on Mondays to Thursdays from 9.30am, on Fridays to 5pm and on Saturdays from 10am to 4pm.

We have mixed material from the display with a selection of Mail archive pictures of events in Barrow’s villages.

Old Barrow Island, or Barrai, meaning island in old Norse, was part of the land given to the monks of Furness Abbey almost 900 years ago.

The island was later owned by the Michaelson family, who sold it to Furness Railway in 1863.

Within 10 years the island was a hive of industry with many workers living in temporary wooden huts.

In 1780, the village which grew to become Barrow town centre consisted of five farmhouses next to the shore and  a series of quays for loading Furness iron ore.

Biggar village, Walney, may have been established by Norsemen driven out of the Isle of Man.

Early buildings would have been made of boulders from the beach, with a peat or turf roof.

Tenants had the right to collect seaweed from the shore to use as a fertilizer on the fields.

What is now Hawcoat is likely to have been farmed on behalf of Furness Abbey by lay brethren or tenants.

The village once had a tower, built in 1838 by ship owner James Atkinson, so he could watch passing ships.

Newbarns may have been formed by Furness Abbey abbot Alexander Banks for a dozen tenants displaced in 1516 by the creation of a deer park at Sellergarth.

The oldest house in the village is Hector House, built by Thomas Fresh in 1683.

North Scale, Walney, was a farm or grange for the monks of Furness Abbey.

A windmill was built in 1763 by Richard Bankes and it operated until the 1860s.

It was demolished when Walney airfield was built.

Ormsgill was the early home of Georgian society portrait painter George Romney.

The monks of Furness Abbey had their own evaporating pans at Salthouse to produce the salt needed to preserve food in the days long before tins and fridges.