User:Ryan Postlethwaite/Kendal/featured article

&#123;{infobox England place with map| |Place=            Kendal |MapX=             98 |MapY=             132 |Population =      27,521 (2001) |District=         South Lakeland |County=           Cumbria |Region=           North West England |Ceremonial=       Cumbria |Traditional=      Westmorland |Constituency=     Westmorland and Lonsdale |PostalTown=       KENDAL |PostCode=         LA9 |DiallingCode=     01539 |GridReference=    SD515925 |Euro=             North West England |Police=           Cumbria Constabulary }}

Kendal is a small town in Cumbria, England. It is the largest town in the district of South Lakeland and the historic boundary of Westmorland and also the third largest town in the county of Cumbria (after Carlisle and Barrow-in-Furness). Kendal is today known largely as a centre for tourism and as the home of Kendal mint cake, its buildings constructed with the local grey limestone have earned it the nickname the Auld Grey Town.

Politics and demographics
The municipal borough of Kendal was created in 1835 and until 1894 the town was also an urban sanitary district. The borough boundaries were altered in 1935 by gaining a small part of South Westmorland Rural District under a County Review Order.

The civil parishes of Kirkland and Nether Graveship were abolished in 1908 and became part of Kendal Civil Parish whose boundaries were after that the same as the borough. The borough was abolished in 1974 under the Local Government Act 1972 to become a part of South Lakeland district whose administrative centre Kendal is. The town remained a civil parish with a town council.

Kendal was from 1888 to 1974 the administrative centre of Westmorland although Appleby is the traditional county town.

Kendal is part of the Westmorland and Lonsdale parliament constituency of which Tim Farron is the current MP representing the Liberal Democrats.

K Shoes
K shoes was formed in 1841 when Robert Miller Somervell moved into Ireland's Sand Aire Mills. He formed a company with £300 of borrowed money from his mother called 'Shoemaking Accessories Merchant and Leather Factor'. Robert then formed a partnership with his brother john in 1848 and this was called "Robert Miller and John Somervell". In 1853, they bought their Netherfiled site and within 15 years, they were the largest employers in the town. In 1915, the company was turned into a private limited company and by 1949, the company was a public limited company, under the new name 'Kendal Shoes'. In 1981 Kendal shoes was taken over by one of its largest rivals, C & J Clark Limited (Clarks). Since that date, as labour costs have risen in the UK, Clarks has moved its production overseas, and it culminated in the closure of Kendal's final K shoes factory in 2003. 

Other Industry
"Despite its antiquity, Kipling showed [the mill] little respect. Within weeks of arrival he de-clutched the 18th-century corn-grinding mechanism and installed a water turbine made by Gilbert Gilkes & Co. in the mill dam." National Trust guide book to Bateman's.

Gawith, Hoggarth - snuff.