J.D.Marshall

It cannot be too often repeated that we have, in the old parish of Warton, one of the most remarkable chroniclers and observers ever to write on local matters. Since hard-working teams of researchers have been at work, over the past twenty years or so, John Lucas has naturally attracted more attention than he did before the foundation of the Mourholme Society. One thing is certain; we cannot afford to neglect his History of Warton Parish, compiled between 1710 and 1740.

I am one of those lucky beings who got hold of a stock copy of the 1931 edition of Lucas, kept in store by Messrs. Titus Wilson, and it is among my most cherished possessions, frequently used as it is. Our Seventeenth Century research team has examined Lucas’s commentaries on many occasions, because his life extended back into that century, of course, and we are again fortunate that his remarks can be used as evidence for Seventeenth Century customs and traditions.

Lucas gives a vivid description of Leighton Iron Furnace1. He commences rather unpromisingly by writing that “Soon after the beginning of this century, the proprietors of the iron works in Furness erected the furnace”. This rather vague reference is in fact one to the Backbarrow Company, formed in 1711, which erected a now famous furnace (the remains of which are still to be seen) by the River Leven near Newby Bridge, and which soon afterwards promoted the building and operation of Leighton Furnace. That the Backbarrow proprietors, with their headquarters at that place, could calmly contemplate this second enterprise, at a distance of a good fifteen miles away by land and sea, says something for their faith in water transport over the Bay.

There was a flourishing shipping traffic in Morecambe Bay and along the north-western coastline at that time, and it is thanks to the records of the iron industry that we know something about it. The Backbarrow Company kept a Day Book and General Account Ledger for 1713-15 (with thousands of entries in it), now preserved at King’s College, Newcastle, with a hand-written copy at Barrow Record Office. It is through scores of entries that we learn something about the building of Leighton Furnace. The latter was erected near a large supply of charcoaling wood, Leighton Wood, which the company bought in October, 1714, for £1,115. It was immensely important to secure supplies of fuel in this way.

To return to Lucas, he shows2 that the Leighton estate had descended to one Albert Hodgson, who, as we know from Alfred Fell’s Early Iron Industry of Furness and from the Day Book, sold the wood to the company. Meanwhile, iron ore was easily shipped for smelting from “the Furness- side of the Sands to Leighton shore” (1714) at 2s.6d. a ton. The iron ore, or haematite, was mined near Dalton-in-Furness and dumped on the nearest shore, and then loaded into sixty or seventy ton vessels at low tide. It is an arresting thought that much of the ore mined in Furness was actually used at Leighton for a number of years, i.e. until about 1728.

If readers look at my edition of The Autobiography of William Stout3 they will find a long list of commodities sold by Stout to the Backbarrow Company for the building of Leighton Furnace in 1713. This list is of interest because it shows what a great range of items an ironmonger might stock in those days, mainly in the form of different types of nails.

The canniness of the Backbarrow partners is displayed in another matter. They had a gin (horse driven winding device) constructed at Leighton, and carried back to Furness in one of their vessels. This presumably solved the problem of a return cargo, but also enabled them to turn the local timber to good use. Meanwhile, Leighton Wood was used to prepare a great variety of timber products which were exported and, since the Leighton Furnace used peat (or ‘turf’4) as well as charcoal for fuel, loaded charcoal sacks may well have gone in the empty ore boats to Furness, where charcoal was more consistently used.

One should remember that this great site of rural industry ceased operations nearly two hundred years ago. Very little of this site now remains, although the converted barn near the Silverdale road is the structure of a very fine original charcoal barn. Ten or so years ago one could see the black staining in the soil near a loading aperture which was once used for the six-foot charcoal sacks. Industrial archaeologists, like Mrs Anne Hillman, have thoroughly surveyed the site. An immense amount of peat must have been taken out of the moss which is upstream along the Leighton Beck.

What is the real point of all this? It is that we have to look outside our own area for significant matters affecting our own local history.

Notes

  1. J Rawlinson Ford and J.A. Fuller-Maitland (eds) John Lucas History of Warton Parish 1931 p55-60 ↩︎
  2. ibid, p.74. ↩︎
  3. J.D.Marshall (ed), The Autobiography of William Stout of Lancaster 1665-1752, 1967, p295 ↩︎
  4. J Rawlinson Ford and J.A. Fuller-Maitland (eds) John Lucas History of Warton Parish 1931 p58 ↩︎

Published in Mourholme Magazine Issue 29 1997