Lonsdale (hundred)

Lonsdale was a hundred of the English county of Lancashire. It covered the northern part of the county, including the detached part around Furness. Furness was known as Lonsdale North of the Sands, the major part of which constituted from 1894 to 1974 the North Lonsdale Rural District.

Places in the hundred included Lancaster, Bolton-le-Sands, Barrow-in-Furness, Dalton-in-Furness, Ulverston, and Morecambe.

Kirkby Lonsdale despite its name was not in the hundred as it lay in the Lonsdale Ward of Westmorland instead; and the villages of Burton-in-Lonsdale and Thornton-in-Lonsdale are in Yorkshire these anomalies stem from the fact the hundred once covered a larger area and is, in fact more ancient than the county of Lancashire being classed as part of Yorkshire in the Domesday Book.

The name Lonsdale refers to the River Lune which flows through the southern part of the area.