Packpony History and Furness
/The Furness region of Cumbria has always been connected in my mind with the working history of Fell Ponies. Furness Abbey was founded around 1127 AD and dominated the region until the dissolution of the monastic system in the 1540s. The monks there used pack ponies to move raw materials and products. For instance, cloth was moved to fulling mills and iron ore was moved to processing facilities called bloomeries. Fleece and other goods were moved from place to place. Maggie B. Dickinson says in an article about the monasteries that, “Along with the other Cistercian houses of Holm Cultram and Calder, the monks became experts in wool production, and pack teams headed for southern ports to export wool to Europe, including thirty sacks bound for Italy each year.” (1)
The ruins of Furness Abbey in Cumbria. Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson
Yet pack pony history in this region did not end with dissolution. It wasn’t until the turnpike roads in 1763 and railways one hundred years later that natural horsepower became obsolete except in the most remote areas. So I’ve learned there’s more to pack pony history in Furness than the monastic period!
Evidence of the pack pony history of this region is like that in other places in Cumbria: scarce. Or perhaps more accurately: one is required to look knowledgeably to see the evidence. My friend Maggie B. Dickinson helped me understand that by looking not only at packhorse bridges and indications of historic tracks/trails but also at establishments of industry in the period, that much remains today to tell the story of the crucial role pack ponies played in their time, if we cast our gaze carefully.
The Furness region is often broken up into the areas Low Furness, High Furness, and the Furness Fells. The region encompassed a significant swath of northwest England, reflecting the dominance of the monasteries in their time. Most of Furness is considered to be outside the Lake District proper, but Low and High Furness had historic and extensive connections with Coniston Water and Windermere and the Furness Fells in between, as well as other places in what is now Lake District National Park. The connection to the Lake District is important from a Fell Pony perspective since the National Park and its World Heritage Site play such a significant role in the landscape of today’s Cumbria. With the World Heritage Site’s focus on the cultural landscape, including the farming and industrial history of Lakeland, documenting our ponies’ role in that history in as many ways as we can benefits our breed. In the context of Furness, pack ponies moved loads between various locations within the region, including into and out of the Lake District, as well as further away.
Map of the Furness region of Cumbria, showing approximate locations of iron mining pits, fulling mills, and bloomeries.
Thank goodness for the popularity of packhorse bridges. Today they are sought out and documented in numerous books and articles, providing an entry point for seeing how pack ponies were integral to the movement of goods and thus to economic life during the packhorse era. Packhorse bridges nearly always can be found on what were important routes between important economic locations at the time.
Bow Bridge at Furness Abbey, a packhorse bridge dating from 1490 AD.
Copyright and courtesy Maggie B. Dickinson
There are two documented pack horse bridges in the Furness region: Bow and Horrace. Horrace is also known as Devil’s Bridge, a name that has additionally been given to packhorse bridges in other parts of England. More packhorse bridges may exist in the Furness region that have not yet been thoroughly documented.
Bow Bridge is located near Furness Abbey in Low Furness. According to Ernest Hinchliffe in his book A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England, “The builders used the same red sandstone as for the Abbey…. The bridge crosses Mill Beck which flows through and under the Abbey ruins, and once provided it with both water supply and drainage channel…. That Bow Bridge is contemporary with the Abbey is confirmed by both its location and its appearance.” (2)
Paul Hindle in his book Roads & Tracks of the Lake District, wrote about Furness Abbey, “In a petition from the abbot to Henry IV, the abbey was described as ‘assis en une isle’ (situated on an island), and indeed the usual route to Furness and the rest of England was across the sands of Morecambe Bay.” (3) The abbey had warehouses on the shores of Morecambe Bay to store its wool prior to movement across the treacherous sands (4). (For more about the sands routes, click here.) Slag and iron ore were shipped by water to Lancashire and farther afield (5). Pack ponies, of course, were involved in bringing these materials to the shore’s edge.
Hades Hill Geronimo, a modern day grey Fell Pony stallion (he will turn white with age). Copyright and courtesy Tom Lloyd
Cistercian monks, including those at Furness Abbey, were said to prefer white animals, and this preference is often linked to the gray color in the Fell Pony breed. Clive Richardson in his book The Fell Pony cites evidence that prior to the dissolution of the monasteries, only bay, brown, and black Fell Ponies were known. Then after dissolution, grey ponies were also known. Sue Millard, on the Fell Pony Museum website points out that grey equines were not exclusive to the Cistercian community at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries. So while the grey color may have entered the breed around the time of dissolution, there is no definitive evidence that grey Fells came from Cistercian stock.
Thomas West in his 1805 treatise Antiquities of Furness distinguishes between Low and High Furness. (Note that the term villain is used in the following quote in its historic meaning of peasant, farmer, or commoner.) West wrote, “While the villains of Low Furness were thus distributed over the land, and employed in agriculture; those of High Furness were charged with the care of flocks and herds, to protect them from the wolves which lurked in the thickets, and in winter to browze (sic) them with the tender sprouts of hollies and ash.” (6) West equates Low Furness with crops and High Furness with livestock activities. In some sources High Furness and the Furness Fells are equated, but in others they are considered separate. The Lake District National Park and World Heritage Site include the Furness Fells within their boundary but not Low and High Furness.
The Lake District is often described as a pastoral landscape, and certainly West’s description fits this vision of the area, with pastoral referring to the presence of shepherds, pasture, or ‘the simplicity, charm, serenity, or other characteristics generally attributed to rural areas.’ But W.R. Mitchell reminds us in his book Farm Life in the Lakeland Dales that, “The pastoral qualities were off-set by traces of industry. In the woods, smoke rose from bloomeries, where iron ore was being smelted using charcoal as a fuel. Slag heaps testified to the places where copper, lead and silver were being mined.” (7)
One source suggests that it was the clearing of woodlands to produce fuel such as charcoal that opened up so much grazing land for pastoral activities. Windermere Reflections says, “The Furness Fells were primarily utilised in the medieval period for their woodland and iron ore. Substantial areas were cleared of trees to make charcoal, and associated with the woodlands were charcoal burning pits and platforms, as well as bloomeries for smelting the iron. These cleared areas became known as Parks…. These Parks were then used for the grazing of cattle and sheep whilst the wood was re-growing.” (8) Pack ponies were integral to the early industrial activities centered around the bloomeries.
Tom Lloyd's Hades Hill Fell Ponies are recreating our ponies’ historically important role of packing via his business Fell Pony Adventures. Courtesy and copyright Tom Lloyd
Low Furness was well known for its hematite (iron) deposits, shown as purple dots on the map. High Furness and the Furness Fells were important for their woodlands which were harvested to make charcoal to fuel the bloomeries, shown as orange dots on the map. Because charcoal is light and fragile and therefore difficult to transport in any volume, bloomeries were located near the woods where the charcoal was made, and pack pones were used to move the ore - a denser, easier-to-haul cargo - to the bloomeries.
The Furness Fells were home to many monastic and post-monastic flocks of sheep whose fleeces were important to the wool trade of the region. During the monastic period, the fleeces were packed south to the Abbey. Windermere Reflections says, “By the end of the twelfth century, Furness Abbey held as many as 60,000 sheep, with most of the raw wool exported outside the region. Wool production was in such large quantities that it necessitated the building of warehouses for storing wool and for the improvement of packhorse routes.“ (9)
Then in the post-monastic period, the center of the wool industry shifted. A Lake District National Park World Heritage Site document says, “Hawkshead especially, following the granting of a market charter in 1608, became the main wool market for the Furness Fells, acting as a gathering point before transferring goods onto the larger trading centre at Kendal.” (10) The gathering would of course have been done on the backs of pack ponies. A 2016 article in The Mail expanded on this, saying, “Much of the cloth produced in Furness went to Kendal to be finished and was then taken to the south coast port of Southampton by packhorses and sold under the brand name of "Kendal Greens.’” (11)
Horrace or Devil's Bridge is on a packhorse route between Martin near the iron ore mines and Lowick where there was a bloomery. This photo was taken in the late 1980s or early 1990s, and the bridge has had some restoration work done since then. Copyright and courtesy Maggie B Dickinson
The second packhorse bridge in the Furness region is Horrace or Devil’s Bridge over Rathmoss Beck in High Furness. It is described as a post-monastic bridge on a route likely previously used for monastic trade. It is between Martin near the hematite mines and Lowick where there was a bloomery. Pack ponies, then, carried ore over this bridge in the days when their horsepower was needed.
While wool and iron ore were the primary commodities of the Furness region, a 2018 article in The Mail about Furness Abbey illustrates that there were many other commodities being moved around by pack ponies. The article says, “The monks at Furness Abbey were skilled at making use of water power for a range of industrial processes…. This included corn mills, fulling mills, iron mines, salt pans and a tannery. In the 15th century there were three corn mills on the Furness stream through the abbey site.” (12) Maggie B. Dickinson, in her article about the packhorse bridges of Cumbria, says, “[Bow Bridge] catered for pack teams and small local carts serving the abbey and its water-driven mill, transporting malt, salt, corn and other vital commodities along this busy trade route.” (13)
In Robert Gambles article “Cumbria’s Forgotten Bridges,” he says about pack ponies, “The wealth of a whole region was carried in their panniers.” (14) That was certainly true for Furness, both before and after monastic times.
Dickinson, Maggie B. “Drunk in Charge of a Packhorse,” Cumbria, November 2016, p. 13-17.
Hinchliffe, Ernest. A Guide to the Packhorse Bridges of England. Milnthorpe, Cumbria: Cicerone Press, 1994, p. 42
Hindle, Paul. Roads & Tracks of the Lake District, Cicerone Press, Milnthorpe, Cumbria, 1998, p. 46
Mitchell, W.R. Farm Life in the Lakeland Dales, Dales Country, Settle, North Yorkshire, 2005, p. 19-20
Furness Iron: The Physical Remains of the Iron Industry and Related Woodland Industries of Furness and Southern Lakeland, 2013, p. 38
West, Thomas. Antiquities of Furness. George Ashburner, Ulverston, 1805
Mitchell, p. 20
Windermere Reflections: Fulling Mills in Easedale, Grasmere, Elterwater, Great Langdale, and Graythwaite. Community Archaelogy Survey Report. Oxford Archaelogy North, September 2012, p. 35.
Windermere Reflections, p. 13.
Lake District National Park Partnership, “History and Development, Section 2.b,” Nomination of the English Lake District for Inscription on the World Heritage List, p. 175
“Export trade in medieval woolen cloth,” The Mail, 1/21/2016, www.nwemail.co.uk
“How medieval Furness monks turned the wheels of industry,” The Mail, 4/5/2018, www.nwemail.co.uk
Dickinson, Maggie B. “Bridges of Cumbria County,” Cumbria, September 2010, p. 15-19
Gambles, Robert. “Cumbria’s Forgotten Bridges,” Conserving Lakeland, Winter/Spring 2005, p. 12
