major tourist attractions include Grizedale Forest, the Aquarium of the Lakes, South Lakes Safari Zoo and the Lakeside and Haverthwaite Railway. The northern and eastern communities of Furness share more in common with the Lake District towns of Ambleside and Bowness, outside of the region, than with the more urban areas of Low Furness. Mining was once a major part of the local economy, but today only the Burlington Slate Quarries at Kirkby remain of note. The A590 is the main road into the region from the M6 Motorway. The A595 is the main route up the western coast of Furness, and the A593/A5084 run north-south from Low Furness to High Furness. The Furness Line provides railway connections to the West Coast Mainline through the south of Furness, and the Cumbria Coast Line is a slow rural branch line with services running north to Copeland and Carlisle. The Windermere Ferry in the east of Furness is England's only vehicular lake ferry. History Furness seems to have been scantly populated in ancient times. A handful of Brittonic placenames survive around Barrow, suggesting this part was settled earliest. Anglo-Saxons arrived in Low Furness in the 7th century, but do not seem to have spread to High Furness, which remained almost empty until it was populated by incoming Scandinavians in the 10th century. It has been suggested that they had a small mountain kingdom there, centred on Coniston (which means "king's town"). The prevalence of names with the element "thwaite" in High Furness (from Norse thveit, "clearing"), and the absence thereof in Low Furness, suggests that the latter had already been deforested by the time the Scandinavians arrived. Scandinavians probably formed the majority of the Furness population, and Old Norse remained a living language in the region until at least the late 12th century. Before the Conquest, Furness, assessed to contain 82 ploughlands, was part of the Manor of Hougun, held by Tostig, Earl of Northumbria. By 1086, Furness was in the possession of the crown. In 1127 Prince Stephen founded Furness Abbey, granting the abbot most of the land in Furness and giving the rest to a Fleming named Michael. Henry III later granted the rent due from the lord of Michael's Land (£10 per year) to the abbot of Furness, making him the sole tenant-in-chief, and thus one of the most powerful abbots in the country. In the 14th century Dalton