Coniston is a village and civil parish in the Furness region of Cumbria, England. In the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,058, decreasing at the 2011 census to 928. Historically part of Lancashire, it is in the southern part of the Lake District National Park, between Coniston Water, the third longest lake in the Lake District, and Coniston Old Man. Coniston is northeast of Barrow-in-Furness, west of Kendal and north of Lancaster. History Coniston grew as both a farming village, and to serve local copper and slate mines. It grew in popularity as a tourist location during the Victorian era, thanks partially to the construction of a branch of the Furness Railway, which opened to passenger traffic in 1859 and terminated at Coniston railway station. The poet and social critic John Ruskin also popularised the village, buying the mansion Brantwood on the eastern side of Coniston Water in 1871. Before his death, he rejected the option to be buried in Westminster Abbey, instead being laid to rest in the churchyard of St Andrew's, Coniston. Ruskin Museum, established in 1901, is both a memorial to Ruskin and a local museum covering the history and heritage of Coniston Water and the Lake District. The philosopher R.G. Collingwood is buried in Coniston. The painter Henry Robinson Hall lived and worked and was buried in Coniston. Donald Campbell added to the profile of the village and lake when he broke four World Water Speed Records on the lake in the 1950s. He died attempting to break the world water speed record for the eighth time in 1967, when his jet boat, "Bluebird K7", crashed at , having already set the record for the seventh time at Dumbleyung Lake, Western Australia in 1964. His body and boat (Bluebird K7) were discovered and recovered by divers in 2001 and he was buried in the new graveyard in Coniston in September 2001. A new wing has been built at the Ruskin Museum to accommodate the fully restored Bluebird K7 boat. It opened in late 2009 with the K7 due to arrive in late 2011 or early 2012. The whole village was powered by hydroelectricity during the 1920s but this became so heavily taxed that the people there were forced to return to the national grid. Since 7 March 2007 a hydro-electric scheme has been in use to power up to 300 homes; being sited