History of Barrow in Furness

license to crenellate the tower and a motte-and-bailey castle was built. However, Barrow itself was just a hamlet in the parish of Dalton-in-Furness on the Furness peninsula, reliant on the land and sea for survival. Small quantities of iron and ore were exported from jetties on the channel separating the village from Walney Island. Amongst the oldest buildings in Barrow are several cottages and farm houses in Newbarns (now a ward of the town) which date back to the early 17th century, as well as Rampside Hall; a Grade I listed building and the best preserved in the town from the 1600s. Even as late as 1843 there were still only 32 dwellings including two pubs.

In 1839 Henry Schneider arrived as a young speculator and dealer in iron, and he discovered large deposits of haematite in 1850. He and other investors founded the Furness Railway, the first section of which opened in 1846 to transport the ore from the slate quarries at Kirkby-in-Furness and haematite mines at Lindal-in-Furness and Askam and Ireleth to a deep water harbour near Roa Island. The crucial and difficult link across Morecambe Bay between Ulverston and Carnforth on the main line was promoted, as the Ulverston and Lancaster Railway, by a group led by John Brogden and opened in 1857. It was promptly purchased by the Furness Railway .

The docks built between 1867 and 1881 in the more sheltered channel between the mainland and Barrow Island replaced the port at Roa Island. The increasing quantities of iron ore mined in Furness were then brought to Barrow to be transported by sea.

The investors in the burgeoning mining and railway industries decided greater profits could be made by smelting the iron ore into steel, and then exporting the finished product. Schneider and James Ramsden, the railway's general manager, erected