A chartered
market town, the centre of Kendal has formed round a high street with alleyways, known locally as yards, off to either side. The main industry in those times was the manufacture of
woollen goods, whose importance is reflected in the town's
coat of arms and in its Latin motto
Pannus mihi panis (Cloth is my bread.) "Kendal Green" was a hard-wearing, wool-based fabric specific to the local manufacturing process. It was supposedly sported by the Kendalian archers instrumental in the English victory over the French at the
Battle of Agincourt. Kendal Green was also worn by slaves in the Americas and appears in songs and literature from that time. Shakespeare notes it as the colour of clothing worn by foresters (
Henry IV, Part 1).
Kendal Castle has a long history as a stronghold, built on the site of several successive castles. The earliest was a Norman
motte and bailey (located on the west side of the town), when the settlement went under the name of Kirkbie Strickland. The most recent is from the late 12th century, as the castle of the
Barony of Kendal, the part of Westmorland ruled from here. The castle is best known as the home of the Parr family, as heirs of these barons. They inherited it through marriage in the reign of
Edward III of England. Rumours still circulate that King
Henry VIII's sixth wife
Catherine Parr was born at Kendal Castle, but the evidence available leaves this unlikely: by her time the castle was beyond repair and her father was already based in Blackfriars, London, at the court of King
Henry VIII.
Roman fort A
Roman fort stood about 2 miles south of today's town centre, at a site later known as Watercrook. It was built about AD 90, originally in timber, rebuilt with stone about 130, in the reign of
Hadrian. The fort was abandoned for about 20 years during the
Antonine re-occupation of Scotland. It was rebuilt in the reign of
Marcus Aurelius and occupied until about 270 – probably the last time it served military purposes. What remains of the stone structure is now buried under a field. Many Roman artefacts from the site may be found in the
Kendal Museum.
Transport Early travellers to Kendal complained of eight miles of "nothing but a confused mixture of Rockes and Boggs." Riding horseback was the fastest form of travel, as the road was "no better than the roughest fell tracks on high ground and spongy, miry tracks in the vales." It became clear it was unjust and beyond the power of a thinly scattered rural population to maintain a road used for through traffic. "Whereas the road is very ruinous, and some parts thereof almost impassable and could not, by the ordinary course appointed by the Laws then in being for repairing the highways, be amended and kept in good repair, unless some further provision was made." In 1703, by Order of the Quarter Sessions of the Barony of Kendall, the surveyors of highways were to make the roads good and sufficient for the passage of coaches, carts and carriages. In 1753 the
Keighley and Kendal Turnpike brought a stage coach service from
Yorkshire as far as Kendal.
Mint cake Kendal is known for Kendal mint cake, a
glucose-based confectionery reputedly discovered accidentally by Joseph Wiper during a search for a clear glacier mint. Used on numerous expeditions to mountaintops (including
Mount Everest and
K2) and both poles of the Earth, its popularity is mainly due to the very astute decision of the original manufacturer's great-nephew to market it as an energy food and supply it to
Ernest Shackleton's 1914–1917
Trans-Antarctic Expedition. By the time the business was sold to a competitor,
Romney's, in 1987, there were several rival mint-cake producers; some of these businesses are still in business.
Tobacco and snuff Snuff manufacture in Kendal dates from 1792, when Kendal resident Thomas Harrison returned from learning its production in
Glasgow, Scotland. He brought with him 50 tons of second-hand equipment, all carried on horseback. Pipe tobacco and other tobacco products were added later to the firm's production. Ownership of the firm passed to a son-in-law, Samuel Gawith, whose eponymic firm
Samuel Gawith & Co. remains in business. After Gawith's death in 1865, the firm passed to his two eldest sons, being administered initially by trustees, including Henry Hoggarth, and John Thomas Illingworth. Illingworth left the firm in 1867 to start his own firm, which remained in business until the 1980s. The youngest son of Samuel Gawith subsequently teamed with Henry Hoggarth to form Gawith Hoggarth TT, Ltd. Both firms continue in business in Kendal, producing snuffs and tobacco products used around the world. Samuel Gawith and Company holds the distinction of employing the oldest piece of industrial equipment still in use in the world: a device manufactured in the 1750s.
The Kendal Bank The Maude, Wilson & Crewdsons Bank was established in "Farrers House", Stramongate in 1788.
Joseph Maude,
Christopher Wilson and Thomas Crewdson were the original partners. In 1792 they moved into specially constructed premises at No 69, Highgate. The Wilson family, who lived at
Abbot Hall, withdrew in 1826 at a time of the paper
panic of 1825 caused by a run on the banks. Under the style of W D Crewdson & Sons, the remaining family continued until the amalgamation in 1840 with John Wakefield & Sons founded by
John Wakefield. The bank was eventually bought out by Barclays. ==Governance==