Piel Island is a small island located off the coast of Barrow-in-Furness that can be reached via a 45 minute walk across the sands from Walney Island at low tides. Back when I was here in May/June we were supposed to walk out to Piel Island, but the trip wound up getting rescheduled to a date after I had left to go home. However, Kevin got to walk out with 3 guys from work (one of them who grew up on Walney Island and acted as the guide). This time, we had better weather and a larger group of people. The poor people working on Piel Island probably thought the Americans were coming to colonize them when 9 Americans showed up en mass. I also had a fantastic new pair of bright pink and leopard print Wellies to go along with my bright pink raincoat and pink sunglasses. I’m sure Kevin was thrilled to be seen with me.
Kevin sports a very fashionable outfit as well
We headed out on the route taken by trucks at low tide (yes trucks do drive out to the island) and arrived after a 40 minute jaunt across the sand. Piel Island has running water but no electricity and houses four houses, a pub and the remains of Piel Castle. While Kevin focused his last trip and blog on the Pub (did you expect otherwise), I spent my time on Piel Island exploring the ruins of Piel Castle.
King John allowed the monks of Furness Abbey to build the first building on the current site Piel Castle – a wooden tower to store goods. After the Scots invaded twice in 1316 and 1322 , the wooden tower was fortified with stone until King Edward III gave the monks license to build the mote and bailey castle that stands today. During the reign of Henry VIII (everything around here ties into him!), he shut down Furness Abbey as part of his war against the Catholic Church and the castle fell into ruins. However, its now owned by English Heritage and they are trying to keep it from falling into disrepair.
As a side note, Piel Castle was mentioned by William Wordsworth (incorrectly spelled Peele and therefore often confused with Peel Castle on the Isle of Man).
Elegiac Stanzas Suggested by a Picture of Peele Castle
I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.
So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene'er I looked, thy Image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.
How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;
No mood, which season takes away, or brings:
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.
Ah! then , if mine had been the Painter's hand,
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet's dream;
I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
Amid a world how different from this!
Beside a sea that could not cease to smile;
On tranquil land, beneath a sky of bliss.
Thou shouldst have seemed a treasure-house divine
Of peaceful years; a chronicle of heaven;--
Of all the sunbeams that did ever shine
The very sweetest had to thee been given.
A Picture had it been of lasting ease,
Elysian quiet, without toil or strife;
No motion but the moving tide, a breeze,
Or merely silent Nature's breathing life.
Such, in the fond illusion of my heart,
Such Picture would I at that time have made:
And seen the soul of truth in every part,
A steadfast peace that might not be betrayed.
So once it would have been,--'tis so no more;
I have submitted to a new control:
A power is gone, which nothing can restore;
A deep distress hath humanised my Soul.
Not for a moment could I now behold
A smiling sea, and be what I have been:
The feeling of my loss will ne'er be old;
This, which I know, I speak with mind serene.
Then, Beaumont, Friend! who would have been the Friend,
If he had lived, of Him whom I deplore,
This work of thine I blame not, but commend;
This sea in anger, and that dismal shore.
O 'tis a passionate Work!--yet wise and well,
Well chosen is the spirit that is here;
That Hulk which labours in the deadly swell,
This rueful sky, this pageantry of fear!
And this huge Castle, standing here sublime,
I love to see the look with which it braves,
Cased in the unfeeling armour of old time,
The lightning, the fierce wind, the trampling waves.
Farewell, farewell the heart that lives alone,
Housed in a dream, at distance from the Kind!
Such happiness, wherever it be known,
Is to be pitied; for 'tis surely blind.
But welcome fortitude, and patient cheer,
And frequent sights of what is to be borne!
Such sights, or worse, as are before me here.--
Not without hope we suffer and we mourn.
After a jaunt around the island, we headed back towards Walney Island. Along the way we ran across one of two car wrecks out on the sandbar. Apparently these people took a wrong turn driving back or the more likely reason – they spent too much time drinking at the pub and waited too long to drive back.
Honey, I think we should stop and ask for directions!
This weekend is Kevin’s pub’s beer fest, so I’m not sure how useful he will be for driving me around, but I’m hoping to get to Furness Abbey tomorrow morning. Cheers!
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