Not quite off the beaten
track…
There is
a road that winds its way forever towards Millom (or the end of the
universe as it is sometimes known).
Along the way are some of the oldest and most unchanged villages of
the Furness Peninsula. It’s
certainly fair to call it bleak, and that’s not at all a bad thing, but when all you want to
do is to reach your destination quickly, that’s quite another matter as you
must go where the road takes you, and be patient. Very VERY
patient… If you choose to stop,
there is nowhere finer than Broughton in Furness, which bristles with
examples of mid to late Victoriana -
not least Martins Bank’s Branch, with its fine stone portal and
slate construction. The village
square still looks serenely untouched by modern hand or architect, and you
are welcomed by that feeling of life having slowed to a gentler pace.
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The
main image, at the top of the page and the smaller two here above, are from
1969 when the Furness Peninsula and a considerable amount of land around
it, belong to Lancashire. It will be
another five years before county boundaries are changed, and this part of
Lancashire becomes part of the newly created “Cumbria”. Broughton in Furness Branch is self
remitting, which means that although it is a sub-Branch to Ulverston, it
has its own sorting code number and deals with its own workload and
processing. Broughton in Furness is
open for business across the full hours of the six-day banking week.
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