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Piel Castle

Barrow-in-FurnessBuildings and structures in Barrow-in-FurnessCastles in CumbriaEnglish Heritage sites in CumbriaFurness
Grade I listed buildings in CumbriaMorecambe BayRuins in CumbriaTourist attractions in Barrow-in-Furness
Piel Castle gatehouse and keep
Piel Castle gatehouse and keep

Piel Castle, also known as Fouldry Castle or the Pile of Fouldray, is a castle situated on the south-eastern point of Piel Island, off the coast of the Furness Peninsula in north-west England. Built in the early-14th century by John Cockerham, the Abbot of neighbouring Furness Abbey, it was intended to oversee the trade through the local harbour and to protect against Scottish raids. The castle was built using stones from the local beach, and featured a large keep with surrounding inner and outer baileys. It was used as a base by the Yorkist pretender Lambert Simnel in 1487, but by 1534 it had fallen into ruin and passed into the hands of the Crown. Sea erosion began to cause significant damage to the castle in the early 19th century. In the 1870s the castle's owner, the Duke of Buccleuch, carried out extensive restoration work and erected outworks to protect it against further damage from the sea. In 1920 the castle was given to the town of Barrow-in-Furness and is now in the care of English Heritage.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Piel Castle (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Geographical coordinates (GPS)

Latitude Longitude
N 54.0626 ° E -3.1733 °
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Address

Piel Castle (Pile of Fouldrey)

Piel Street
LA13 0QJ
England, United Kingdom
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Website
english-heritage.org.uk

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Piel Castle gatehouse and keep
Piel Castle gatehouse and keep
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Nearby Places

Walney Lighthouse
Walney Lighthouse

Walney Lighthouse is a functioning lighthouse located on Walney Island in Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, England. The current building dates to the early 19th-century and is Grade II* listed as well as being the southernmost man-made structure in Cumbria.Completed in 1804, the stone lighthouse and its attached cottages actually predate Barrow and its port. The structure was built to replace a smaller wooden lighthouse that was constructed by the Lancaster Quay Commissioners in 1790 to aid in navigation towards the docks at Glasson close to Lancaster and the River Lune. It contained three 3-foot (0.91 m) reflectors mounted on a slowly-revolving shaft; the reflectors consisted of a concave wooden frame covered with small pieces of mirrored glass.The original lighthouse was destroyed by fire in 1803 and was swiftly replaced by the lighthouse of today. The lighthouse was designed by engineer E. Dawson. The optical system (as renewed in 1846) was a clockwork-driven rotating array of four Argand lamps backed by parabolic reflectors, which gave a white flash once a minute.The lighthouse saw little change until 1909, when an acetylene gaslight system was installed, this was again changed in 1953 to a 'manned' electric light and rotation system (still with the four reflectors), flashing once every fifteen seconds. In 2003, when it was finally automated, Walney was the last manned lighthouse in England. It was also the last to be using a catoptric apparatus; that year the reflectors were replaced by a modern electric light unit.