Location

The parish of Millom Without is located in the southwest of Cumbria, forming the southernmost part of the borough of Copeland. The Parish straddles the boundary of the Lake District National Park and is designated to be within the setting of the National Park.

The community lives within a picturesque landscape which comprises pastoral farmland, open fell and salt marshes along the northern banks of the Duddon Estuary. Our main centres of population for the nine-hundred or so residents are the villages and hamlets of The Green, The Hill, Lady Hall and Hallthwaites. Flowing through the length of the parish is the small river of Black Beck, reaching the coast at the Duddon Estuary.

All is within the shadow of the rounded, 2000ft peak of Black Combe which borders the winding pass of Whicham valley.

Open source map of part of parish
Hallthwaites from the bridge

Landscape

Much of the Millom Without Parish is under agricultural use primarily sheep and cattle for market and for milk. The grass which grows well in the mild climate covers a host of low, rolling hills and valleys punctuated by small patches of broad-leaf woodland and run through with old lanes and stone bridges. Occasional reminders of the areas industrial past can be seen in small mine workings, quarries and the remains of furnaces, kilns and woollen mills, sometimes recorded in the names of houses.

The Duddon Estuary is the wide tidal outflow of the River Duddon which rises in the southern Lakeland fells and is a designated SSSI and RAMSAR site (1990). William Wordsworth described the river as his favourite and wrote extensively upon it, recalling time spent there in his early years.

Tourism and Industry

We have a small but growing tourist business which is complementary to our beautiful landscape. Our closest neighbour is the town of Millom, once a centre for heavy industry and mining. Nowadays the industry is on a smaller scale and it is essentially a small, self-contained working town with its own burgeoning tourism sector.

Around our parish borders we have the coastal villages of Silecroft, Kirksanton and Haverigg, with Broughton-in-Furness, Foxfield, Kirkby-in-Furness, Ireleth and Askam ringing the eastern and southern fringes of the Duddon Estuary.

To the north and east the skyline reveals the tops of the Scafell and Coniston ranges of mountains which may be accessed through Broughton-in-Furness via the beautiful gateway valleys of the Duddon and Lickle Rivers.

Fellside with farm track