Broughton-in-Furness

Why base here

Broughton-in-Furness had 549 residents at the 2021 census, which Wikipedia notes makes it the smallest town in Cumbria, and it sits on the south-western edge of the national park where the Duddon estuary begins. Its market charter dates from 1575, and the Square was laid out in 1760 by John Gilpin Sawrey, lord of the manor at nearby Broughton Tower; the Old Town Hall followed in 1766 as a market hall, is Grade II listed, and now houses the tourist information centre. The obelisk in the middle commemorates George III’s jubilee of 1810, and beside it stand the village stocks and two low slabs where fish were laid out for sale, as Britain Express records. The charter is still read aloud in the Square on 1 August. Visit Lake District lists a butcher-grocer, a bakery and tearoom, a post office, a restaurant and several pubs, enough for a week without a drive for supplies.

The honest case is the one the town makes for itself: it is far enough from the central Lakes not to draw crowds, and the Duddon Valley begins two miles north, a valley Wordsworth followed from source to sea in his thirty-three River Duddon sonnets of 1820. Its eighteenth sonnet is for Seathwaite Chapel and its curate Robert Walker (1709 to 1802).

On foot versus by car

Nothing on this list starts from the door. The nearest by distance, measured from the site’s own coordinates, are all 12 to 14km away as the crow flies, and every one is a drive.

Old Man of Coniston is the simplest: the A593 leaves the A595 at Broughton and runs through Torver to Coniston, where the standard path climbs beside Church Beck. Wikipedia notes that the Walna Scar Road also reaches the fell from Seathwaite in the Duddon Valley, but as an indirect climb by way of Dow Crag. Harter Fell has two starts: the Hardknott Pass layby, or the Birks Bridge car park on the Duddon side, about a mile east of the fell by the gps-routes description. Birks Bridge, an eighteenth-century packhorse bridge that is Grade II* listed, lies between Seathwaite and Cockley Beck. Hardknott Roman Fort is reached by the same valley road, which ends at Cockley Beck at the foot of a pass with a maximum gradient of 1 in 3. Stanley Ghyll Force is in Eskdale, and the way there from Ulpha is over Birker Fell rather than Hardknott, which is the better choice for anyone who would rather not drive the pass.

Practicalities

Foxfield, about a mile from the Square, is the station, on the Cumbrian Coast line with an approximately hourly service Monday to Saturday, Barrow-in-Furness to the south and Millom to the north. Broughton had its own station once; passengers lost the line in 1958 and goods traffic ended in 1962, as did the Coniston branch that left from Foxfield. Stagecoach runs the X7 between Barrow, Broughton, Millom and Haverigg, and Visit Lake District refers readers to Traveline for the timetable. Valley roads beyond Ulpha are single track, so a bus does not replace a car for the walks above.

If the walks are the point and the village is not, Coniston puts the Old Man at the end of the street. Eskdale puts two of this list’s four, Stanley Ghyll Force and the Roman fort, much nearer a bed, and has the railway as well. Broughton suits a quiet week with a car and a taste for the Duddon, and it does not suit anyone hoping for a mountain path from the front door.