Furness

Furness, a district in the north-west of Lancashire, forming a peninsula between Morecambe Bay and the Irish Sea. The chief town is Barrow-in-Furness (q.v.). The ruin of Furness Abbey, 2 miles from Barrow, is one of the finest examples of the transition Norman and Early English architecture in the country. Founded in 1127 for the Benedictines, it afterwards became a Cistercian house. It was long one of the wealthiest abbeys in the kingdom. The civil jurisdiction of the princely abbots of Furness extended beyond the district of Furness. See Richardson's Furness (1880), and Barber's Furness and Cartmel Notes (1895).