ABSTRACT
Furness Abbey has been a roofless ruin for 475 years; that is 65 years longer than it was a monastery. As such it has had a significant afterlife as the focus for romantic excursion and tourist curiosity. Despite its remoteness from the ‘conventional’ Lake District, and the difficulties posed to early travellers by the tidal crossings of Morecambe Bay, a visit to the abbey was considered an essential part of any trip to the Lakes for the discerning visitor from the late eighteenth century onwards. The observations of a veritable ‘who’s who’ of Georgian and Victorian writers, and some curiously minded Americans, led to the abbey being acknowledged as a well-established aspect of the picturesque qualities of the Lake District. Consequently, and throughout the nineteenth century, the abbey became a site of considerable imaginative appeal to tourists, who came in increasing numbers following the arrival of the Furness Railway and the decision to build a station and hotel at the site. The period under discussion ends in 1923, as this was the year when ownership of the abbey, and coincidentally the railway station and hotel, changed hands. 1
