Low Furness in the Middle Ages

(c.950 – 500 years ago)

The Norman invasion of 1066 and subsequent developments resulted in dramatic building activity; expressed in this area most vividly in the remains of the Abbey of St Mary near Barrow in Furness, and the ruins of Piel Castle on its island near Rampside. Low Furness reveals another side to this more flamboyant evidence for Norman and feudal ambition. As with the Urswick story, this hidden narrative leads us to archaeological evidence that makes us think about the origins of key features in the landscape. On a lonely headland just over a kilometre south-west of Aldingham are the magnificently sited remnants of a Norman motte and bailey castle; so-called because of a large earthen mound (the motte) which originally supported a timber tower, originally linked by a timber bridge to an enclosure (the bailey). Yet appearances can be deceptive; and excavations here in 1968 revealed that the earliest phase of the site was an earthen ringwork, (a ring mound originally topped with a timber palisade) similar to the remains perched above a ravine some 500m north-west of the church at Pennington. The origins and dates of these earlier ringworks are unknown.

Buried in the hills two kilometres to the west of Aldingham are the gaunt ivy-clad remnants of Gleaston Castle – a rare 14th century oddity; never completed, and out of date even as it was being (inadequately) constructed. The owners of Gleaston Mill just to the south have supported a number of archaeological investigations in the 1990s; giving new clues as to the origins of the mill, (and going much further back in time, as was mentioned earlier). Yet one of the hidden gems of the area is in Aldingham itself; the Church of St Cuthbert, with a much-eroded pre-Norman cross shaft element built into the chancel, and grey cement rendering disguising a complex medieval and post-medieval building (though it is unable to hide the massive 14th century tower; similar in many respects to that at Great Urswick).

More subtle archaeological evidence for the way that ordinary folk lived and worked in this period comes from just south-west of Little Urswick, where the traces of houses and a street of a medieval village appear in the fields.

* Click here to download a summary of all the history of Low Furness