Malcolm Wheatman recalls some once-familiar names in Kendal in years gone by

Charismatic now, with hindsight, I can remember some names of vanished Kendal shops, small industries and smaller businesses that supported them.

There was R. W. & T. K. Thompson, outfitters, on the corner of Branthwaite Brow; Bailie and Hargreaves, a dimly-lit hardware shop with a long walk to the vast counter; and the Co-op, with what today would be called zipwires radiating from the central cashier sat high up in a glass cabin.

Small money containers would whiz up from those serving and moments later would return with any change.

There was Fifty-Shilling Tailors, also at Finkle Street, which had a huge chrome and mirror sign; adjacent, Boots chemist and and the lending library (a penny per book), its trade-mark name sculpted high above in red stone.

Small grocers included: F. V. James, Stramongate, where I was once grocery boy; Althams, The Co-op, and The Maypole, all in Finkle Street; and Leightons, at Highgate.

William Brennand’s pork butchers had a queue of customers all day long. Their famous pies were often copied, never equalled.

Somervell Brothers, later K Shoes, had a red brick ‘Counting House’ in Red House Yard, Highgate, where farther down, was Mr Davies, bookbinder, whose tiny workshop served local printers.

The Riverside ‘Wire Mill’, by Stramongate Bridge, with a loud chugging gas engine outside, made wire-brush-like carding sheets for the weaving industry, also for which, close by, a small building up a yard housed a ‘reed and heddle’ manufacturer (weaving loom warp guides).

In a loft room down Yard 123, Highgate (Wilkinson’s or Cross House Yard) worked Mr John Dixon, the last hand-loom weaver; but Gawith, Hoggarth (manufacturer of Kendal snuff and tobacco) still have a smoking Saracen figure high on the wall outside.