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Furness Abbey (April-Sept daily 10am-6pm; Oct daily 10am-5pm; Nov-March Wed-Sun 10am-4pm; GBP2.70; EH), a set of roofless sandstone arcades and pillars hidden in a wooded vale - the so-called "Valley of Deadly Nightshade" - lies a mile and a half out of Barrow-in-Furness on the Ulverston road (local buses to Dalton-in-Furness and Ulverston pass close by). Now one of Cumbria's finest ruins, it was once the most powerful abbey in the northwest, possessing much of southern Cumbria as well as land in Ireland and the Isle of Man. By the fourteenth century it had become such a prize that the Scots raided it twice, though it survived until April 1536, when Henry VIII chose it to be the first of the large abbeys to be dissolved. The transepts stand virtually at their original height, while the massive slabs of stone-ribbed vaulting, richly embellished arcades and intricately carved sedilia in the presbytery are the equal of any of Yorkshire's far busier abbey ruins. The Abbey Tavern at the entrance serves drinks at tables scattered about some of the ruined outbuildings.
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