GeoGraph - photograph every grid square

· Branch Line to Coniston

· Signalbox

· Village

· Foxfield

This square is in the coastal plain adjacent to Duddon Estuary. It is in Countryside Character Area 7 - West Cumbrian Coastal Plain. Glacial deposits overlie Silurian shales and slate, producing marshland next to the sea. The square is in the former Broughton West CP, now Duddon CP, in South Lakeland DC east of the Duddon, and Millom Outer CP in Copeland DC west of the Duddon.

The road through the square became an A-road in 1992, in order to bypass Broughton-in-Furness.

The railway is the Furness Railway (Barrow to Whitehaven) built in 1848. Foxfield Station is still open, and from it the Coniston Branch was constructed in 1859 and closed in 1957; it is now a cycle path. The station has a water tower with a substantial stone plinth. There was also a link line from the west to the Coniston Branch; this was closed by 1889 and is now represented by curved field boundaries. The railway crosses the Duddon where it is narrowed by a spit of land called Foxfield Point, and to reach the crossing it cuts through a small hill.

The hamlet of Foxfield was presumably built after the station was opened, and consists of the Prince of Wales Hotel, which has its own brewery and serves 'real ales' and scrumpy cider, and next to it a row of five substantial terrace houses (built for middle-class commuters?). In the centre of the square Foxfield Farm is probably an ancient settlement, built in conjunction with the cultivation of former marsh- and moorland. Sand Gap is another house or farm in the NE corner. OS 2001 shows a 'Pit (dis)' (?) next to the road.

Part of Greety Gate Marsh is next to the estuary to the north. Opposite the station there was a belt of marshland (Foxfield marsh) alongside the railway in 1889, but this area was sand in 2001. A bridleway crosses it and carries on across the estuary; in ancient times people on foot or horseback crossed over the estuaries rather than travelling up to the first bridge on the roads of the day, which were only packhorse tracks.
At the SE corner Skellow Crag End is where a ridge of slate meets the estuary.

This is a desk study based on information from the internet, the OS 1:2500 map of 1889 and the OS 1:25000 map of 2001. Further information, and photographs of course, would be very welcome.