Historian Arthur Nicholls reveals the stories behind some of Kendal’s streets

Still in Highgate, let’s look at some more famous Kendal names.

Webster’s Yard recalls the Kendal architects George and Francis Webster who designed and built many of Kendal’s limestone houses, including Farrer’s tea shop, the old fire station in Finkle Street, now a cafe, Aynam Lodge and Miller Bridge.

Miles Thompson, whose name is seen on the public house in Allhallows Lane, worked for the Webster’s and later took over the firm. There is a little effigy of him on the gable end of a house on Beast Banks.

Dr Manning is recollected in his Yard. He was a well- liked and respected doctor who lived in the house at the head of the Yard. He was a surgeon at the County Hospital from 1898 to 1930, dying the following year.

Before him, the house was occupied by George Braithwaite, who gave his name to the yard in the 19th century.

He was a drysalter by trade and a great local philanthropist. Among his many acts of charity was the organising of a soup kitchen for the poor of the town in the years of great hardship.

During the Napoleonic Wars, he experimented to ascertain how little food one needed to survive, and he recommended the diet to his poor neighbours but they were less than impressed! He died in the Yard in 1853.

Sandes Hospital was built by Thomas Sandes in 1659 and endowed in 1670 as almshouses for eight poor spinster wool workers, incorporating the Bluecoat School, then for boys only.

He was a wealthy wool trader, Mayor of Kendal in 1647 and lived with his wife, Katherine, in a house named Grandy Nook on Fellside.

He was a Shearman Dyer and took the guild’s coat of arms for his own.He was a shrewd politician, first under Cromwell before he changed sides when Charles II returned to the throne. His memorial can be found in the Parish Church.

The name of William Shakespeare, seen on the Shakespeare Inn, needs no explanation.

At the end of the yard beside it was a theatre that opened in 1829. One of the plays put on was the notorious ‘Maria Marten and the Red Barn’.

The theatre closed in 1834 and was used as a billiard hall and a ballroom.

Lowther Street, beside the town hall, opened out in 1782 on the site of gardens, requiring the demolition of the Black Bull public house.

It was known as the New Street before being changed to Lowther Street, after the Lowther family. They supported the Tories while the Broughams followed the Liberals.

After riots broke out at the General Election in 1818, many Kendalians refused to use the Lowther name, continuing to call it New Street.