Furness Abbey, once neglected and rather inaccessible, has more recently become one of the best known and most easily reached of the historic spots of northern England. Among the multifarious activities of the late Duke of Devonshire, was the building of the railroad that leads to Barrow-in-Furness and the development of that town into an important port of sixty thousand inhabitants. A few miles north of the town are the extensive ruins of Furness Abbey, a Cistercian foundation of the twelfth century, situated in a narrow valley underneath overshadowing hills from which the red sandstone used in the building was taken. The keen business sense of the duke recognized in this splendid ruin a decided factor to assist in his plan of development. The grounds surrounding the abbey were converted into a handsome park, a station was opened on the railroad just opposite, and a large hotel was built near by. Furness Abbey, however, carefully groomed and in charge of voluble guides posted in the minutest detail of architecture and history, can hardly impress one as it did when, a lonely and crumbling ruin, it was the goal of only the infrequent visitor. Its story is a long one but of interest only to the specialist or antiquarian. To the layman the tales of the different abbeys seem wonderfully alike: founded in religious zeal, a period of penury, then of prosperity, and finally one of great power and affluence. Then came the quarrel of Henry VIII. with Rome and through the activity of the king's agents the abbeys were plundered and partially destroyed. The direct damage inflicted by the looters was usually limited to tearing the lead from the roofs, smashing the windows, and defacing the tombs. Then followed the long ages of neglect and the decay consequent upon the rains of summer and the storms of winter. But more than all other causes that contributed to the ruin and sometimes complete effacement of the magnificent abbey buildings, was the vandalism that converted them into stone walls and hovels--every one became the neighborhood quarry and in many instances we owe the fragments that remain to the solidity that made tearing down a difficult task.