North Scale

North Scale is a village and one of only four settlements on the Isle of Walney, Cumbria, England. It is the northernmost settlement, lying a mile north of Vickerstown.

North Scale was first identified as an agricultural settlement, owned by Furness Abbey, in 1247.¹

As a Parliamentarian stronghold in the English Civil War it was briefly sieged by Royalists.²

In 1865, the Crown Inn opened in North Scale.³

Before the Jubilee Bridge to Walney Island opened in 1908, people crossing on foot at low tide would arrive near North Scale. A causeway was built to make crossing possible for longer periods.⁴

The village grew with the development of the Red Ley estate in the 1960s and the Barnes estate in the 1970s.⁵

North Scale has a community centre, and is linked by bus services to the rest of Walney Island, and to Barrow-in-Furness, via the Jubilee Bridge.

The village is home to the Lakes Gliding Club.⁶

North Scale is mentioned alongside Biggar in the folk song 'Wa'ney Island Cockfight' as the origin of one of the groups of cockfighters.⁷⁸ The song has been recorded by Fiddler's Dram and Martin Wyndham-Reed.