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

In Stricklandgate we find more names of notable Kendalians immortalised in street and yard names.

Redman’s Yard (often misspelt Redmayne’s) is called after Christopher Redman, one time Mayor of Kendal, who had a cabinet maker’s business there.

The Yard also housed the workshop of Christopher Steele, to whom the Kendal artist, George Romney, was apprenticed and learned his trade to become famous.

Maude Street is named after Joseph Maude, who came to Kendal from Sunderland, setting up as a merchant, bill-broker and moneylender, building Stricklandgate House in about 1776.

He was very successful in business and in his family life, fathering no less than 12 children.

He was a partner in one of the first two banks which opened in Kendal on the same day in 1788. He died in 1803.

The house contained the Museum of the Literary & Scientific Society, many of its exhibits now being in Kendal Museum.

Thomas Camm had a rope and twine walk in Camm’s Yard, the ropes being laid in the long straight yard. He made a wide variety of rope products, including bell ropes, cart ropes, halters for hoses and rabbit nets.

Bonnie Prince Charlie marched his army through Kendal following his defeat at Derby in 1745 and is said to have stayed overnight in the house of Thomas Shepherd, which now bears his name.

His pursuer, The Duke of Cumberland (after whom a public house at Far Cross Bank is named), is said to have slept in the same bed the following night.

Shaw’s Brow, off Windermere Road, reminds us of the builder, Thomas Shaw and of Dr Thomas Shaw MA, who was born in 1693 in a cottage in Lile Capper, a yard where Maude Street now runs from Stricklandgate.

Leaving Queen’s College, Oxford, he became a chaplain in Algiers. Returning to England, he became Doctor of Divinity and published books of his travels and experiences.

He is said to have been of grotesque appearance but this was offset by his good humour.

He died in 1752 and the house was demolished in 1857.

The name of Alfred Wainwright again is one that needs no comment. He is well known for his pictorial guide books to the Lakeland Fells, all hand written in his unique impeccable and artistic style. His name is kept alive by the recent Wainwright’s Yard.

The old Sleddall almshouses, now residential accommodation, are named after John Sleddall, who endowed them in 1887 in commemoration of Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee.

It is said that, when he called on the vicar to discuss the project to build them in New Hutton, he was kept waiting in a draughty corridor and left in a huff, deciding to build them in Kendal instead.

He claimed to be descended from Thomas Sleddall, Kendal’s first mayor in 1636, who owned Sleddall Hall, built in 1600, in what is now Wildman Street.

The hall contained a priest hole, a place of refuge for visiting Catholic priests when their ministrations were punishable by death.

So we have two places reminding us of the name of Sleddall.