Kendal Ward - A description

Though it is of great extent, and contains 47 townships, with 17 chapels of ease, and about half of the population of Westmorland, is only divided into 5 parishes, viz. Beetham, Grasmere, Hevershaw, Kirkby-in-Kendal, and Windermere. It is the most interesting portion of the county, both in picturesque beauty and agricultural and commercial consequence; the soil in its numerous dales and thwaites being generally very fruitful, and many of its inhabitants in and around its capital (Kendal) being employed in the manufacture of woollen, linen, cotton, and hosiery goods. It has its name from the river Kent, which as well as many smaller streams, rises within its limits and flows southward to the broad sands of Morecambe Bay. It contains the beautiful lakes of Windermere, Rydal, and Grasmere, with several smaller sheets of water, called tarns, and is intersected as far as Kendal by the Lancaster Canal. It is of an irregular figure, resembling a rude outline of a shoulder of mutton, and is in extreme length 26 miles, and varies in breadth from 5 to 13 miles, but the greater portion of it is not less than 10 miles in width. It is bounded on the west and south by Lancashire, on the east by Lonsdale Ward, on the north by the East and West Wards, and on the north-west by a small part of Cumberland. It has four market towns, viz. Kendal, Ambleside, Bowness, and Milnthorp, and forms the DEANERY of KENDAL, in the Archdeaconry of Richmond, and Diocese of Chester. That this ward is well refreshed by rivers and brooks, may be inferred from its having no fewer than 66 county bridges, of which the following is an enumeration: --

*.* The seven marked thus * are supported jointly with Lancashire, and the rest solely by Kendal Ward, which also contributes to two others included with the East Ward.