Qualla: Piel Island

Piel Island: Introduction

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The wub, CC BY-SA 4.0. There is a pub on this island, and the man behind the bar is a king. Not a metaphorical king, not a man who feels like a king after his third pint - a man who wears the title King of Piel, voted into the role by Barrow-in-Furness Borough Council along with the licence to run the Ship Inn. The island he reigns over is twenty-six acres in size, lies in Morecambe Bay off the Furness peninsula, and has four permanent residents counting his family. The next nearest neighbour is a ruined fourteenth-century castle.

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Image: The wub | CC BY-SA 4.0

Piel Island: Fowdray of the Fodder

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gareth Page. The original uploader was GPage at English Wikipedia., Public domain. In the Middle Ages the island was called Fowdray, or Fouldrey, from the Old Norse fouder for fodder and ey for island - a Viking name for a pastoral scrap of land in a Viking-named bay. The Liberty of Furness was granted to Earl Tostig in 1066, the same Tostig who would die that ...

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Image: Gareth Page. The original uploader was GPage at English Wikipedia. | Public domain

Piel Island: Pilots, Painters and Romantics

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Dr Greg, CC BY-SA 3.0. The eighteenth century turned Piel into a working maritime outpost. As iron ore traffic grew on the Furness coast, harbour pilots and customs inspectors took up permanent residence on the island, formally classified as a creek of the port of Lancaster. Their cottages still stand....

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Image: Dr Greg | CC BY-SA 3.0

Piel Island: The Ship Inn and the King of Piel

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit zergo512, BSD. There has been an alehouse on Piel since at least 1800. By 1841 the licensee at what would become the Ship Inn was a man named James Hool. The grand title King of Piel began in the nineteenth century as a fishermen's joke that hardened into custom, harking back to Lambert Simnel'...

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Image: zergo512 | BSD

Piel Island: Getting There, Staying There

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stevvvv4444, CC BY-SA 4.0. Piel is a tidal island, which is a polite way of saying that the route changes depending on the moon. In summer a small ferry runs from Roa Island pier, weather and tide permitting. The harder way is to walk across the sands from Walney Island at low tide, with local guidance - t...

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Image: Stevvvv4444 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Piel Island: A Small Kingdom

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Stevew2022, CC BY-SA 3.0. Piel is the kind of place that should have been swept away by the twentieth century and somehow was not. It has no permanent infrastructure beyond the Ship Inn and a handful of cottages. Its monarchy is real in the only way a monarchy can be when no one is forcing you to bow - by...

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Image: Stevew2022 | CC BY-SA 3.0