Castles of Cumbria: #3 Kendal Castle Howe

Castle Howe is the site of Kendal's original, motte and bailey castle and can be found hidden between Beast Banks and Gillingate, tucked away behind buildings but easily accessed via a number of footpaths. It's about twenty minutes walk from the town centre. There's not much to see apart from the hump of the motte and evidence of defensive ditches. The remains of the bailey are now parkland.

Thoughtfully, there is a plaque showing an artist's impression of what the motte and bailey castle would have looked like in Norman times, with an exlanation of what a motte and bailey castle is and why there are so many around.

The monument on the top of the motte isn't a war memorial, but an obelisk commemmorating the centenary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. I think it would be safe to assume that the monument wasn't erected by Jacobite sympathisers or Catholics.

There's a good view to be had across the valley where you can see Kendal's other castle on the hill opposite. You can almost imagine someone looking across at the tempting-looking mound of high ground commanding the river and thinking, "There's a good spot to build a nice stone castle over there. Shall we move? Should I nip down to Lancaster and obtain a 'Licence to Crenellate'?"

Castles of Cumbria: #2 Kendal Castle

Located as it is on the edge of the Lake District, many people believe that Kendal is in the Lake District. It isn't. Although the town houses the HQ of the Lake District National Park, Kendal itself is actually outside of the National Park boundary and so has to content itself with the old "Gateway To The Lakes" soubriquet. Certainly, the town deserves this description better than Morecambe, for example, that makes the same claim despite being at the end of a ten mile detour off the M6, 20 miles or so to the south. Some gateway. You can see the fells from the prom, I suppose; but I can see the fells too, out of my office window in Barrow and we don't make bogus claims to being a gateway to the lakes. Unless you arrive by sea, that is.

Still, poor old Morecambe has to try hard to attract visitors these days, so good luck to them. It attracts tourism, I suppose, but Kendal has the more powerful claim. It was, after all, the adopted home of the legendary Alfred Wainwright whose fellwalker's guides to the Lake District's fells are considered definitive.

But I digress (get used to it): Kendal can also boast of being home to not one but TWO castles. The site of the original Norman motte and bailey can be found at Castle Howe on the western, "town" side of the River Kent, but it's more obvious brother, Kendal castle, can be found on a hill overlooking the town tucked away behind the houses and business premises on the eastern side of the river.

Annoyingly, Kendal can also lay claim to the site of a Roman fort at Watercrook.

Now that's just greedy.

Here are some photos of Kendal castle. Although a greatly ruinous castle, walking up there stretches the legs, exercises the lungs and gets you away from the incessant traffic that weaves it's way through the tortuous one-way system.

Once up there, you are rewarded with some great views of the fells to the north and the town nestling in the valley below.