This was placed with permission of the RSPB.
Millom had its wealth and size due mainly to the finding of iron ore in the area in the middle of the nineteenth century, prior to that Millom was basically a one street town (Holborn Hill). And as a by-product of the iron ore an Ironworks was also founded in the town. Iron ore mining started around 1850 and it was the biggest Haematite deposit on the Furness peninsula.In the first 50 years the Hodbarrow mines at Millom produced 13 million tonnes of iron ore.There were 20 different shafts at the mines and Moorbank was the deepest at nearly 600ft (182.8m). The one here was called Annie Lowther and was about 30 yards away from the cache.
As there wern't enough men in the town to supply labour for these new industries, a call was put out for a new start for people and families. A lot of workers came from Cornwall, Wales and Ireland to full fill these vacancies and people can still today trace their familiy history back to these places.
Because of this the town expansion was massive towards the late end of the nineteenth century with all the bottom end being built being built in Queen Victoria's era. It was quite a common fact that home owners rented out rooms to offcomers and they were known to share rooms like one in one out with each working twelve hour shifts. It has been said that every family in the town had a worker there.
The ore mined here was virtually pure, the only thing was, it couldn't be mined cheaply enough as being under the sea it was liable to flood and so with imported ore being cheaper the mine was closed in 1967 and along shortly afterwards the ironworks closed putting 666 men out of work. All that is left are pools of red water and soil which indicated iron ore and a lighthouse for the end of the inner barrier. This was said at the time, to be the death of Millom but just like the pheonix it proved them wrong with employment being saught in Barrow-in Furness, Sellafield and Ulverston. More recently a book manufacturer has moved into the town taking over an old stocking factory.
Where the cache is, it is almost on the end of the old sea wall known as the inner barrierand being on the Hodbarrow RSPB site a habitat for many species of birds etc. In summer the noise can be deafening with the sound of terns and over eighty swans seen on the lagoon. Near to the cache is a framework explaining the pitfalls of marine waste in the environment. On the post there are two buttons which when pressed will explain all about the iron ore industry and Millom. It is a BYOP .
Kudos to Snakes77 for FTF.