An area of extreme contrasts, from the close-packed but proudly independent textile towns north of Manchester to the romantic scenery of the southern Lake District, and from high Pennine moors to the sandy beaches of Bloackpool and the Fylde Coast. Wordsworth's poem describes how the beauty of the ruins of Furness Abbey reduced even a gang of railway navvies to reverential silence. Many gentry houses display a tenacious local brand of Jacobean; others, including the Pugins' Scarisbrick, demonstrate the strong local affinity with the Gothic Revival. Voysey's internationally important Arts-and-Crafts houses in Lakeland sit happily alongside the whitewashed local cottages.