Holiday Homes in Askam and Ireleth

On the eastern shore of the Duddon estuary, looking out across the sands towards the fells, Askam and Ireleth is a pair of villages in the far south of Cumbria, on the Furness peninsula. Old Ireleth, a farming settlement of Viking origin on the hillside, and Askam, a Victorian village born of the iron-mining boom below it, have grown together into one estuary-side community. It lies outside the national park, on the low coastal land of the peninsula, but with wide views and a real sense of away-from-it-all calm.

The estuary is the great draw. The Duddon sands are a Site of Special Scientific Interest, rich in birdlife and home to a large share of the country's natterjack toads, and the old slag banks left by the ironworks now shelter nesting terns. Askam's slag pier juts out into the bay towards Millom, and just north the unusual links course at Dunnerholme has a green perched atop a limestone outcrop rising from the sands. St Peter's, known as the Iron Church and built on the profits of mining, looks down over both villages from Ireleth Hill.

Askam and Ireleth make a quiet, wildlife-rich base in the south of the county, well placed for the southern Lakes around Coniston and the Duddon Valley, for Furness Abbey and Barrow, and for long walks on the estuary shore. Askam has its own station on the Cumbrian Coast line. For a peaceful coastal base with the fells across the water, choose one of our Askam and Ireleth holiday homes.