Into the Furness - Another Fine Bus Ride
13 September 2025
ABOVE: Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire 10557 (SN16 OOA), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, heads towards Grange-over-Sands, working route X6 towards Ulverston and Barrow-in-Furness. All pictures in this article were taken on Saturday 3 May 2025, unless otherwise stated.
The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914 to 1917 is considered to be the last major expedition of the "Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration". The expedition was conceived by Sir Ernest Shackleton as an attempt to make the first land crossing of the Antarctic continent: the "one great main object of Antarctic journeyings".
Shackleton's expedition took an horrific turn when the boat, Endurance, got caught in the pack ice during the harsh Antarctic Winter of 1915. Eventually the ice expanded to sink the ship, stranding 28 men on the ice. (Read the whole story here.)
It's an extraordinary story, with limited relevance to my journey today, but did you know that the expedition was supplied with Kendal Mint Cake?
Kendal, in Cumbria, is where am I now, and the popularity of its Mint Cake is attributed to the very astute decision of the original manufacturer's great-nephew to market it as an energy food and supply it to major expeditions, including Shackleton's. Shackleton failed to achieve his objective, but the expedition became recognised instead as an epic feat of endurance, and, against the odds, most of those involved in the expedition made it home
No endurance is required for my expedition today. I am heading onto the Furness Peninsula, an area of villages, agricultural land and low-lying moorland, with the industrial town of Barrow-in-Furness at its head. The peninsula is bordered on three sides by water, including the estuaries of the River Duddon to the west and the River Leven in Morecambe Bay to the east.
Stagecoach Cumbria & North Lancashire (SCNL) routes 6 & X6 provide the key bus services across this peninsula. But few buses on route 6 start in Kendal (only two on a Saturday), so I've got here nice and early for the 0920 departure.
ABOVE: SCNL 37106 (YX14 RZK), an Enviro200, in Blackhall Road, Kendal, approaching the Town Bus Station, on local route 41A to Oxenholme.
My bus is an ADL Enviro400, and there's the unmissable growl of a Scania engine. It arrives eight minutes before time, and the driver allows me, and the one other passenger here, to wait on board (the bus gets a lot busier later).
The initial routing is identical to the 555, which I explored a few articles back. We head through Staveley...
...and into Windermere, where the 6 parts company with the 555 to head through the Town Centre.
ABOVE: SCNL 15722 (PX61 CVC), a Scania N230UD ADL Enviro400, on route 6 towards Barrow-in-Furness, as seen from the open-top deck of a route 599 bus, in Windermere Town Centre on Friday 2 May 2025.
As Windermere merges seamlessly into the neighbouring town of Bowness-on-Windermere, we come across the Royalty Cinema, which started out as a Public Hall in 1927.
The centre of Bowness is distinctly downward in direction:
But the climb that some will have to make in order to get back to Windermere (if they don't use the bus) is worth it when one gets to the Promenade.
(The main boat in view as the bus passes is the MV Swan, a 1938 vessel.)
As we leave the bustle of Bowness behind, route 6 becomes a lot quieter, and the landscape less built-up. We're heading broadly down the eastern side of Windermere itself (the lake), but views of it are quite scarce given the foliage.
We reach Newby Bridge, a hamlet. We've left the southern end of Windermere behind now.
This is where the X6 joins the plain 6, having made its way from Kendal by a different route, which I will come to later (both in terms of what I do on the day, and in this article)!
The road follows the course of the River Leven for the next few miles; a constant companion on our right-hand side. But, yet again, our tree-lined surroundings hide this effectively.
We cross the river and reach Haverthwaite Station, one end of the Lakeside & Haverthwaite Railway. This was originally a part of the Furness Railway, which opened in 1869 (and the station building seems to be the original). Regular services ceased in 1946, although special trains continued for almost another two decades. British Railways closed the line to passengers in 1965, and to freight two years later. The line reopened as a tourist railway in 1973. The railway runs via Newby Bridge to Lakeside, at the southern end of Windermere. Some services are timed to connect with sailings across Windermere to Bowness and Ambleside.
We don't go into Haverthwaite village itself - it's about a mile away as the crow flies, and off the main road.
The River Leven is becoming wider and more significant as we approach Greenodd. It's just a few miles more before the river flows into Morecambe Bay.
The name Greenodd is of Scandinavian origin, the "odd" bit (so to speak) meaning headland or ness. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries Greenodd was a significant port. Exports included copper ore, limestone and gunpowder, whilst sugar, raw cotton and coal were amongst the imports.
My number 6 takes a 600-yard round-trip detour to serve a bus stop at the entrance to Greenodd village. The X6 on my return journey does not, although the latter is listed as serving that stop. How very green-odd.
ABOVE: Near Greenodd
We've entered the Furness peninsula itself now as we approach Ulverston. The Sir John Barrow Monument (colloquially known as the Hoad Monument) is a 100-foot-high limestone tower at the top of Hoad Hill. Although designed to resemble a lighthouse, it isn't one, and it has also been referred to as the "Pepper Pot".
The monument commemorates Sir John Barrow (1764-1848), who was born in Ulverston. He was a founding member of the Royal Geographical Society. He travelled to China and South Africa as a diplomat and held the post of Second Secretary to the Admiralty from 1804 until 1845.
ABOVE: The Sir John Barrow Monument stands proudly on the hill overlooking the approaches to Ulverston.
The town of Ulverston is mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 and was granted a market charter by King Edward I in 1280. It's a lively spot on a Saturday lunchtime...
ABOVE: Market Street, at the junction of New Market Street, in Ulverston
I have already mentioned Sir John Barrow, but he's probably not the most famous son of Ulverston. That accolade surely belongs to Arthur Stanley Jefferson (1890-1965), better known by his stage name - Stan Laurel.
Born in Ulverston, Laurel began his career in music hall, at one time acting as Charlie Chaplin's understudy, and he and Chaplin arrived in the United States on the same ship. Laurel began his film career in 1917, and went on to appear with Oliver Hardy (1892-1957) in over 100 comedy short and feature films.
Laurel & Hardy's slapstick comedy is legendary. One of my personal favourites is the three-reeler "The Music Box" (1932), which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short (Comedy). All they had to do was deliver a piano up a flight of steps... The steps in question, in the Silver Lake district of Los Angeles, are now known as the "Music Box Steps".
But it's a different film of theirs that is commemorated in a statue that was unveiled in 2009 in Ulverston Town Centre, by (future Sir) Ken Dodd, and the Mayor of Ulverston. Standing proud outside the former Coronation Hall, which played its first production in 1918, Stan and Ollie are joined by Laughing Gravy, the dog that they try to hide from their landlord in the 1931 film of the same name.
ABOVE: The statue of Laurel and Hardy - and Laughing Gravy
It's a fitting tribute to the lad from Ulverston who found international success in Hollywood. There's even a museum dedicated to Laurel and Hardy here, just around the corner.
Back to the buses, and the frequency of route 6 dramatically increases on the last stretch to Barrow. Having been decidedly irregular from Kendal and Windermere, the service from Ulverston runs every 20-40 minutes, with the X6 adding its hourly service to make a 20-minute headway.
ABOVE: SCNL 15822 (PX62 CEA), a Scania N230UD ADL Enviro400, approaches the Seg Lane Crossroads on Ulverston Road with an X6 service towards Kendal.
We leave the main road to call into the town of Dalton-in-Furness. Historically it was the capital of Furness.
ABOVE: Market Street, Dalton-in-Furness
ABOVE: SCNL 10555 (SN16 ONX), an ADL Enviro400 MMC, picks up a customer at Bank Corner, Dalton, on one of the short working journeys to Ulverston. These buses bifurcate from the main route in Ulverston to provide a service to the residential area of Croftlands, south of the Town Centre.
The bus reaches Barrow Town Centre at 1115, nine minutes late. I've not detected where we have lost time on the way. Barrow-in-Furness's location, and the availability of steel, allowed the town to develop into a significant producer of naval vessels; several Royal Navy flagships, the vast majority of its nuclear submarines as well as numerous other naval vessels, ocean liners and oil tankers have been manufactured here. The shipyard remains operational to this day.
ABOVE: SCNL 36990 (SN63 YPO), an ADL Enviro200, calls in at the Coronation Gardens stop in Abbey Road, Barrow, on route 1 to Furness General Hospital. The "H" is a symbol for the hospital rather than part of the route number!
After a tea break at an extremely busy coffee shop, I have a few minutes to study the timetable poster in the bus stop, which appears to be more complicated than it really needs to be. There are only routes 6 and X6 at this stop, but timings for buses towards Furness General Hospital, Ulverston, Windermere and Kendal are all grouped separately, even where the times are essentially the same (eg, to Kendal and Ulverston on Sundays).
I find it very confusing, especialy with the destinations in alphabetical order rather than route order, and I consider myself an "expert" in reading bus timetables (pompous, I know)! It's also not helpful that the route numbers in the last column have been obscured from view because the poster hasn't quite been fitted correctly. Whoever fitted it may have had trouble, as they have had to secure it using a bulldog clip (see top-right corner)!
We pass Barrow station, which is busier than I would have expected it to be, with three trains in.
My return journey is via the X6, which follows the same route as the 6 as far as Newby Bridge, before turning south-eastwards towards Grange-over-Sands. I've joined the 1250 departure from Ulverston, which will have left Barrow at 1210.
We head a few miles on from Newby Bridge on the main A590, before we branch off onto the steep Cartmel Lane. We skirt the edge of Lindale, but don't go into the centre at this stage.
ABOVE: Looking south towards Lindale, with the Royal Oak pub prominent on the left (the building with the dark sign)
Grange-over-Sands sits on the northern side of Morecambe Bay. The town developed, after the arrival of the railway in 1857, from a small fishing village into a popular seaside resort. The "over-Sands" suffix is rumoured to have been added in the late 19th or early 20th century by a local vicar, who was fed up with his post being delivered to Grange in Borrowdale near Keswick, at the other end of the Lake District!
The fine railway station building here was designed by the Lancaster architect E. G. Paley, for the Furness Railway Company, in about 1864.
It's only about three miles as the crow flies to the other side of Morecambe Bay, so the land mass is clearly visible. The photo below is from just north-east of Grange-over-Sands. It's hard to tell what's on this side and what's on the other in this picture, but looking straight across is probably broadly towards the village of Silverdale, a few miles north of Morecambe itself.
ABOVE: Looking across the Bay towards Silverdale (perhaps) and way beyond. Note that I have managed ot get a full image of my bus in the traffic mirror!
We're now heading back towards Lindale. This time, we're in the village itself, and only half a mile from where we were before branching off to Grange.
ABOVE: The centre of Lindale
A few more miles through the countryside brings us back to the environs of Kendal. Whilst we departed on route 6 to the north, we're coming back in on the X6 from the south.
ABOVE: Highgate in Kendal, on Thursday 1 May 2025.
I'm back in Kendal Bus Station at 1352. It's been a lovely drive across to Barrow and back. In fact, as Oliver Hardy almost said to Stan Laurel on numerous occasions, it's another fine bus ride I've gotten you into! And lovely mint cake as well!
