Soon after the start in the town centre, the route continues with a stroll along the willow-lined Ulverston Canal — a lovely stretch of water linking the town with the estuary. Opened in 1796 to bring boats carrying coal, slate, copper, gunpowder, and general wares to and from factories now hidden by vegetation on the far side, at its other end (at just over 1.5 miles, the shortest canal in England) are the remains of wooden lock gates. This entrance was finally sealed in 1948 by a concrete wall, and today the only traffic consists of ducks, coots, moorhens, gulls, and swans (having been in decline since 1846 when the Furness Railway opened). From here there is a good view northwards to the Leven Viaduct carrying the railway across estuary waters.
The walk continues past the massive GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceutical factory, crossing Dragley Beck and continuing due south on the Cumbria Coastal Way. This leads to another sign of Ulverston's industrial past: a slag bank now covered with vegetation. To the left, a dismantled railway track is now a grassy highway (Brick Kiln Road), while to the right stands all that remains of Ulverston's brickworks — a tall red-brick chimney banded with yellow, standing alone, forlorn but magnificent.
Ahead through the trees is Conishead Priory, a house built on the site of a monastic foundation dissolved by Henry VIII. Home of the Braddyll family from the mid-17th century, it has now reverted to religious purposes as a Buddhist centre, and on the hill to the right is a hermitage built by Colonel Braddyll in 1836 to house a hermit whom he paid to live there.
Across the water from the pebbly beach of the estuary is Chapel Island, whose few trees frame a romantic ruin — another folly commissioned by Colonel Braddyll and built by Conishead's monks using stones from an actual disused chapel. The shore path skirts the priory woodland where willow warblers sing in spring; when the tide goes out, rocks and mussel beds are uncovered, and oystercatchers, curlews, dunlins, redshanks, and eider ducks feed here and on newly exposed sands.
The route heads inland to the village of Bardsea, whose splendid church was built on land obtained at auction in 1848 when Colonel Braddyll went bankrupt (perhaps owing to an over-indulgence in architectural conceits). The focus of the village moved uphill around the church; in earlier times, when more vulnerable to attack from the sea, houses were huddled behind a hill.
From Bardsea you climb steadily to Birkrigg Common for fine estuary views. Grassy tracks through bracken lead to a Bronze Age henge consisting of ten standing stones (a hamlet that was part of Bardsea Manor until about 1586). Lower Sunbrick Farm and Cottage are dated 1655 and 1672 respectively. Just beyond the settlement you pass a walled enclosure containing a small Quaker burial ground — the last resting place of Margaret, wife of George Fox (founder of the Quakers).
From the top of Birkrigg Common, the walk continues across country and through a housing estate to Swarthmoor Hall (a substantial three-storey stone building built by Judge Thomas Fell, Margaret's first husband). Close by in Meeting Hall Lane is a 17th-century Quaker Meeting House, from where a footpath leads over Levy Beck back into Ulverston. In the centre of the roundabout close to the starting car park is a large stone once used for communal clothes washing and as a podium for auctioneers selling sheep.
Acknowledgment: Text derived from the Out and Out Series; Discovering the Countryside on Foot. Pictures courtesy of Wikipedia.
