On the way up to Scotland (somewhere called Portsonachan - we stayed in the Portsonachan Hotel, a break we bought at the Prestwold Hall Food Festival in May 2016) we stopped off at Kendal in the Lake District. I was quite impressed with the size of the Carnegie Library, and the fact that it appeared to made of red stone, rather like our own.
The other thing that impressed me was the obvious care that was given to their yards and courts: we also had a lot of these in Loughborough, and funnily enough, Kendal had an Angel Yard, not unlike ours, although I doubt they had a world-famous publisher based in theirs!!
Like Loughborough, Kendal has a market, the charter for which was granted in 1189, while Loughborough's was granted in the 1200s:
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| Sign over Kendal Market |
The main street in Kendal is called Highgate, and this was the name of Loughborough's High Street before it became the High Street:
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| Highgate, Kendal |
Having spent a few hours wandering around Kendal, we moved on to Troutbeck, a small villlage near Windemere. Here we were in serious rolling countryside, the home of sheepfarmers. While my thoughts turned to Robert Bakewell, I was also struck by the piles of slate I saw scattered along the roadside.
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| Sheep at Troutbeck |
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| Slates at Troutbeck |
We still had a long journey to Scotland ahead of us, so we stayed the night in Dumfries. This was a very interesting town with strong links to Robert Burns, the celebrated Scottish poet, and we were staggered by the mausoleum, but even more so by the size of the gravestones in St Michael's churchyard. Most seemed to be made of the local sandstone, and were huge, and some had angels carved into them.
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| Enormous gravestones |
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| What I would call normal sized gravestones |
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| An angel carved into the sandstone gravestone |
We visited several museums in Dumfries, many with a Robert Burns connection, but it was at the Dumfries Museum that there was a strong connection with Loughborough, in he shape of a sock - a garment fashioned on a framework knitting machine, although most likely to be made of wool.
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| A framework knitted sock |
As if that weren't enough, there was also a model of a cruck frame building, rather like our very own Windmill Inn, our Manor House (now Caravellis) and Lowes.
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| Model of a cruck frame building |
Gosh, we're still only in Dumfries, and so so much more to write!! I think I'll leave that until next week! Pop back and hear about more local connections!
You are welcome to quote passages from any of my posts, with appropriate credit. The correct citation for this looks as follow:
Dyer, Lynne (2017). Kendal, Troutbeck, Scotland, Carlisle and the Loughborough connection part 1. [Online] Available from: http://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2017/02/kendal-troutbeck-scotland-carlisle-and.html [Accessed 18 February 2017]
