Stavely to Kendal

Stavely Village Hall

We wanted to profit from our stay in Kendal by seeing something of the countryside. We toyed with heading further into the Lake District, but decided instead to simply take a taxi to Stavely and walk back to Kendal along the Dales Way. We were very interested to see Stavely - which we hadn't realised is so near to Kendal until I looked at the map last night - because a friend (who is a follower of this blog) has a holiday cottage there.

We were dropped off in the centre and we decided to make the parish church our official start. So we headed toward the north edge of the village past the Village Hall, with hills behind, to find the small Victorian church of St James. From here we walked through the charming village and past the remains of St Margaret's chapel. A helpful plaque explains that it dates from 1338 and the tower had been added 1589. The windows were added when the nave of the church was demolished and the new church was built on higher ground. The clock was added to commemorate Queen Victoria's Jubilee.

As we left the village, I was taken by this one-time bank branch. It looks as though it had previously been a pub. Martins was taken over by Barclays in 1969, so the survival of the sign is a bit of mystery.

A bit further on, the Dales Way joined the road from the right (west) and by the time it turned off to the left we were in lovely open country.

Quite soon, the Dales Way led down to the side of the River Kent, here fast, shallow and clear.

Further on, it runs in more of a ravine and is narrower, faster and more turbulent.

Soon we passed a wonderful barn, with an intriguing Norman arch at one end. It looked an ideal candidate for a restoration project.

Then quite suddenly came to Cowan Head, where there is a classic mill pool and where an 18th century paper mill, which closed only in 1977, has been redeveloped, rather nicely we thought, as luxury flats. It was quite a shock in the otherwise rural landscape.

The route continued along a road and then a track, withe the river just out of sight on the left. At Bowston we crossed to the other bank and continued through fields, with pleasing views to the north-east.

At Burneside, we detoured around the massive paper mill and then parted company with the Dales Way. The remaining two miles or so back to Kendal were less interesting. It was mainly - inevitably I suppose - on the road, with one detour to follow the river around an enormous meander. Unfortunately, the landward side was occupied by a golf course.

Eventually we made our way into the centre of Kendal and began to overlap with yesterday's town walk. We decided to deem the Market Place to be the end of the walk.

Map: Explorer OL 7 (The English Lakes).

Conditions: cloudy, constant threat of rain, but actually almost dry; wet and muddy underfoot.

Distance: about 6 miles in all.

Rating: three and half stars.


Flower of the day

As so often, I can't identify this pretty yellow flower growing by the side of a small stream.

Kendal

The Town Hall

We were in Kendal for a family party and had planned to walk in the wonderful country all around. However, the day dawned grey and wet, so we decided to do a town walk instead and use coffee bars and pubs to dodge the worst of the rain.

We walked down the pedestrianised Stricklandgate in steady rain, past the Market Place and stopped under a shop awning to take a look at the Town Hall. Its asymmetrical nature is immediately obvious, although the windows are well matched. It turns out that the right hand section was built as an assembly hall in 1825 (replacing an earlier Cloth Hall), while the left hand side was added in 1893.

We continued south into Highgate and were struck by Sandes Hospital on the right. A cloth merchant named Thomas Sandes founded a school and eight almshouses here in 1659. The interesting house you see was the master's house, the almshouses are at right angles to it the yard behind. They were rebuilt in 1852 and refurbished in the later 20th century. To be honest they are not the prettiest group I have ever seen and works in the road rather spoiled my photo of the front.

When I was roughing put a route this morning I saw on Google maps further almshouses marked in Romney Road right on the southern edge of the town. We plodded down there in the rain, only to be unsure which they were. In them end, we decided they had to be this handsome pair of semi-detached cottages, which stood out from the otherwise terraced houses. A little piece in the Westmorland Gazette reveals that they are the Watkins Memorial Almshouses and date from 1928. A Mrs Watkins, who died in 1908, provided for them in her will.

It was however no bad thing to have walked so far south, because when we began to retrace our steps, we had a great view of the river Kent and the Nether Bridge, the first of five road bridges over it. According to Visit Cumbria "Nether Bridge is the most attractive of the bridges ... It dates from the 17th century, and was originally quite narrow, having been twice widened ... the oldest part of the bridge is on the right hand side, dating from the 17th century. The middle section dates from 1772, and the left hand, upstream section dates from 1908"

After the bridge, we walked up Kirkland to see the handsome parish church with its famous five aisles, two either side of the nave. It dates from the 13th century, but was enlarged in the 15th and restored in the 19th. We couldn't really go in as wedding was in progress.

The view is even more impressive from the river side.

We continued along the riverside path and thrilled to find yet more almshouses - the best of the lot - on the other bank.  The Sleddall Victoria Jubilee Almshouses were built by John Sleddall in 1887. The chapel, on the right, was converted into two houses in 1986.

On our left was the Abbot Hall art gallery, which we believed to be closed. Mercifully however it was open and we spent a happy hour looking at an exhibition of modern painting from Lucien Freud to Paula Rego, as well as the permanent collection. It was built in 1759 on the site of a former monastic building.

By now we had had about enough rain, so we headed back to Highgate and had a quick look at the 18th century Dr Manning's yard, a good example of a distinctive Kendal feature. The layout of the town is characterised by the narrow yards and lanes branching from the main street. There were once about 150 yards, often named after the owner of the main house which usually stood at the top of the yard.

We warmed up with excellent fish and chips from Fish Express in Highgate.

Conditions: did I mention that it was raining.

Distance: about 4 miles in all.

Rating: four stars. A bit different.