Nibthwaite is a village in the

Westmorland and Furness Westmorland and Furness is a Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area in Cumbria, England. The economy is mainly focused on tourism around both the Lake District and Cumbria Coast, shipbuilding and the Royal Port of Barrow, Royal ...

district, in the county of

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

in the northwest of England. It is in the civil parish of Colton, and on the east side of

Coniston Water Coniston Water is a lake in the Lake District in North West England. It is the third largest by volume, after Windermere and Ullswater, and the fifth-largest by area. The lake has a length of , a maximum width of , and a maximum depth of . Its ou ...

. It is in the historic county of

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated ''Lancs'') is a ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Cumbria to the north, North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the east, Greater Manchester and Merseyside to the south, and the Irish Sea to ...

. There was a furnace and forge at Nibthwaite from 1751 to 1840, later (c1850) replaced by a bobbin mill, see

Harrison Ainslie The firm of Harrison Ainslie & Co. was a British firm of ironmasters and iron ore merchants, selling high quality haematite from their mines on Lindal Moor to smelters in Glasgow, Scotland, South Wales and the Midlands. From a 21st-century pers ...

The family of the author

Arthur Ransome Arthur Michell Ransome (18 January 1884 – 3 June 1967) was an English author and journalist. He is best known for writing and illustrating the ''Swallows and Amazons'' series of children's books about the school-holiday adventures of childre ...

regularly holidayed at Nibthwaite when he was a child, and he incorporated local places and customs into the five of his

Swallows and Amazons series The ''Swallows and Amazons'' series is a series of twelve children's adventure novels by English author Arthur Ransome. Set in the interwar period, the novels involve group adventures by children, mainly in the school holidays and mainly in E ...

of children's books which were set in the Lake District, around a lake based on both

and

Windermere Windermere (historically Winder Mere) is a ribbon lake in Cumbria, England, and part of the Lake District. It is the largest lake in England by length, area, and volume, but considerably smaller than the List of lakes and lochs of the United Ki ...

.''The Life of Arthur Ransome'', by Hugh Brogan, pp1-4 (Jonathan Cape, 1984)

References

Villages in Cumbria Colton, Cumbria {{Cumbria-geo-stub

See also

References