228 Fleetwood Furness Abbey. 



one of the most charming spectacles in South Lanca- 

 shire. 



Travelling onwards by this railway, in due course we 

 reach PRESTON, distant from Manchester thirty miles. 

 Continuing thence in a straight line, we reach Lancaster, 

 for Silverdale, distant about sixty miles ; onwards 

 again, we are at Bowness for Windermere ; or at Penrith 

 for Keswick. Turning off, on the other hand, westwards 

 from Preston, at fifty miles' distance from Manchester we 

 find Fleetwood, and are thus far advanced upon the 

 pleasantest way into the Lake district, which is from 

 Fleetwood by steam-boat across Morecambe Bay to the 

 Pile of Fouldrey,* and so past Furness Abbey to Newby 

 Bridge and the foot of Windermere. No one staying at 

 Fleetwood should miss crossing to see the ruins of 

 Furness Abbey. They are very extensive, a perspective 

 of 287 feet in length being commanded from the great 

 east window; and the crevices being abundantly oc- 

 cupied with vegetation, and the spot on which they 

 stand, embosomed in trees, the appearance is eminently 

 picturesque. The abbey was founded A.D. 1127, but 

 the greater portion of the existing ruins do not appear, 

 from their pointed arches, to be older than the reign of 

 Henry III. Some round-headed arches, in the south- 

 western part, belong probably to the original building, 



* Pile, Pille, or Peel, for in all these ways is the word spelt, is 

 from pelum, a dog-Latin term of the middle ages for a castle, as in 

 the " Peel of Man," of the miscalled, by duplication, " Peel Castle." 



