The Westmorland & Furness Way long distance trail was formally opened on 15th September 2026 in Sedbergh. And two Furness PathFix volunteers were there to support the event and meet the W&F Countryside Access team who worked on it.
Prior to that event, Cumbria Tourism produced the following W&F Way publicity video, showing and interviewing a PathFix volunteer team who were replacing an old badly damaged fingerpost north of Ulverston. (The W&F Way follows follows the Cumbria Way route on this section.)
In August & September PathFix volunteers have installed four new fingerposts on the Cumbria Way (CW) north of Ulverston, as part of our efforts to greatly improve the waymarking of the Cumbria Way. Many thanks to Westmorland & Furness Countryside Access Team for supplying the fingerposts.
Click photos to enlarge.
Two Fingerposts on Old Hall Road
Earlier this year we proposed and coordinated a Cumbria Way route improvement between Gill Banks and Old Hall Farm just north of Ulverston. The new route avoids a steep and eroded climb and also avoids the busy active farmyard at Old Hall Farm. To waymark the new route we have now fitted two new fingerposts.
This is where the new CW route gets to the end of the attractive Gill Banks track and comes onto the very minor Old Hall Rd lane.
BEFORE: The old fingerpost was starting to rot, but it also needed a new finger for the Cumbria Way.
AFTER: The new post has fingers for all 3 routes – CW south down the Gill Banks path, CW north along Old Hall Road and north-east along the footpath over Flan Hill to Town Bank Road.
Access track to Old Hall Farm fro Old Hall Rd (OS Map & Grid Ref): –
This is where the CW (when heading north) leaves leaves Old Hall Rd and goes down the farm access track and then turns right before the farmyard.
BEFORE: There should have previously been a fingerpost here, since the farm access track is a footpath leaving Old Hall Rd, but it was missing.
AFTER: New fingerpost waymarks both the public footpath and the CW route north and south.
Two fingerposts near Hollowmire Farm
Near Hollowmire Farm (heading north) the CW follows a very minor lane for 250m at Eller Riggs Brow, and new fingerposts were needed where it joined and left this lane: –
Here the old fingerpost had lost one of its fingers and the remaining finger was hard to read. It has now been replaced with a new one that has fingers for walkers going both north and south on the Cumbria Way.
This is a useful footpath that leads from the entrance to Wax Lyrical in Lindal-in-Furness (the old Candle Factory) to near the crossroads where Stone Barrow Lane crosses the lane from Dalton to Little Urswick (called Urswick Road as far as that crossroads, Hooks Lane from there to Little Urswick). From there it is a short walk up Stone Barrow Lane to Verstone kennels & cattery, where the ancient Dimples Hole Lane track leads to two footpaths that go either over or around Little Urswick Crags to the middle of Little Urswick.
The path has 3 main problems: –
The kissing gate at P4 is damaged beyond repair and very hard to open & close.
The step on the wooden step stile at P5 has collapsed.
The kissing gate at P6 is a very tight squeeze to get through, plus has barbed wire close to possible hand holds.
Click photos to enlarge.
P1: Kissing gate near where path leaves London Road at Wax Lyrical, Lindal: (OS Map & Grid Ref)
I forgot to check whether there is a fingerpost where this path leaves the actual lane (London Road). But it is only about 30m across the Wax Lyrical car park to this relatively recently installed tall kissing gate, which is next to a tall gate into the field. The kissing gate is fine and easy to get through. And although it does not have any waymarks on it, it is fairly easy to see from the lane. And there is a two-way waymark on the stile at P2 immediately beyond the kissing gate, it is fairly easy to see which way to go.
This wooden stile is immediately after the kissing gate, but the Mascalles path being surveyed (FP 602022) does not go over it – instead it continues past it along the edge of the field – since this stile is just the start of path FP 580035, which branches off left and goes to the junction of Halier How Lane and Stone Barrow Lane. The stile is firm and in good condition and has clear recently -itted new waymarks on both sides, and the ones on the Mascalles path side make it fairly clear that the path to Mascalles goes straight on past it, not over it.
The only issues here are that I could not see any waymark for people going towards Lindal, plus the hedge and some nettles are starting to encroach so some more trimming would be useful. This old kissing gate is OK, opens easily and has a reasonable gap. It looks like it is prone to getting overgrown by the hedge, and there were some nettles very close, so it could do with a bit of clearing. But on the survey date it was OK and the hedge looked like it had been trimmed to keep the kissing gate usable. There is clear recently fitted new waymark on the Lindal side but no waymark visible from the Mascalles side.
This old kissing gate is a write-off now and is very hard to use. So it needs to be completely replaced. The gate hinge post is loose in the ground and leaning, so the gate hanging on it is pressed against the ground and is hard to lift in order to move. It has also lost one of its vertical bars and the pointed end of another one is exposed and sticking up at the top, a little dangerously. The cage part of the kissing gate is also badly damaged. So all in all this kissing gate is quite hard to use and still leave in a stock-proof state, and the whole structure needs replacing. There are recently-fitted new waymarks on both sides.
This has nice old stone blocks as steps leading up to it on the Lindal side, with a single wooden step to get over the top of the wooden fence, which is quite firm. But the support post for that wooden step on the far (Mascalles) side has rotted and collapsed and the step is lying on the ground. The Lindal side wooden support post is still in position and is reasonably firm but does wobble a bit. So this stile needs the wooden step replacing.
Also, I felt that the recently fitted new waymark pointing onward towards Mascalles is a bit ambiguous. It left me unclear as to whether to go left or right of the clump of trees shown in the photo. The correct way is to the right of them, but the next target (the final kissing gate onto the lane) is not visible from here. So I feel it might be worth refitting that waymark to point is a bit more bearing right.
There are several problems at this old kissing gate: –
The main problem is that it’s a very tight squeeze to get through.
It is also overgrown a bit on one side by the adjacent hedge.
Finally, there is a barbed wire strand very close to you on the other side, which is also wrapped round the road-side fingerpost just where you’re likely to get hold to steady yourself.
The reason the gap between the gate and the cage is very tight is partly that the nice old limestone gatepost on which the gate is hinged (right hand side in 1st photo, from lane side, and left hand side in 2nd photo, from field side) has leaned over towards the cage, and as a result the gap round the gate when passing through is very tight – only about 9½” (235mm). On the other side of that gatepost (left side in 2nd photo) there is a low stone wall and it looks like over the years it has been pushed over a bit by the heavy stones of the adjacent dry stone wall. When the W&F countryside access officer visited this with me, she suggested that if the adjacent stones are removed it might be possible to pull the gatepost vertical again, then wedge it in on the gate side, and then rebuild the dry stone wall, with a narrow gap between. But I feel that might still not create a big enough gap and the gatepost might need to be moved further away from the cage in order to get a decent gap to get through.
This photo shows the barbed wire strand, which spans acroos the end of wall just behind the limestone gatepost and is wrapped around the fingerpost with barbs sticking out in a dangerous position.
