Barrow-in-Furness

Coordinates: 54°06′39″N 3°13′34″W / 54.1108°N 3.2261°W / 54.1108; -3.2261

Barrow-in-Furness (/ˈbæroʊ ɪn ˈfɜːrnəs/; commonly known as Barrow; Barra in the local dialect) is a town and seaport in the county of Cumbria, England. Historically part of Lancashire it was incorporated as a municipal borough in 1867 and merged with adjacent districts in 1974 to form the Borough of Barrow-in-Furness. Situated at the tip of the Furness peninsula close to the Lake District it is bordered by Morecambe Bay, the Duddon Estuary and the Irish Sea. In 2011 Barrow's population stood at around 57,000, while 69,000 lived in the wider borough making it the second largest urban area in Cumbria after Carlisle. Natives of Barrow as well as the local dialect are known as Barrovian.

In the Middle Ages, Barrow was a small hamlet with Furness Abbey, on the outskirts of the modern-day town, controlling the local economy before its dissolution in 1537. The iron prospector Henry Schneider arrived in Furness in 1839 and, with other investors, opened the Furness Railway in 1846 to transport iron ore and slate from local mines to the coast. Further hematite deposits were discovered, of sufficient size to develop factories for smelting and exporting steel. By the late 19th century, the Barrow Hematite Steel Company-owned steelworks was the world's largest.