26-28 Highgate

Between 22 Highgate (Mountain Warehouse and 30 Highgate (British Heart Foundation)

Curwen

Mentioned in "Kirkbie-Kendal, Fragments collected relating to it's ancient Streets and Yards; Church and Castle; Houses and Inns", John F Curwen, 1901

The most picturesque buildings still left to us of the olden time are the shops now owned by Alderman Titus Wilson.

Like the “Fleece Inn” they had their pent roofs, projecting some five or six feet further on to the footway, supported by rude wooden posts and which were removed in 1828.

Here were the business premises of Thomas Hudson, who nailed to a beam for “good luck,” the first penny he earned, which, by the way, proved such a good omen that he was enabled before his death, in 1811, to purchase the whole of the property. His son John, together with Cornelius Nicholson, who were fellow apprentices in the office of the Kendal Chronicle, went into partnership on November 12th, 1825, and succeeded to the printing and stationery business of Benjamin Dowson, which had been carried on in one of the four small shops already described on page 33.

Success still following that nailed penny, the partners removed across the way to Hudson’s premises, and here in 1832 Cornelius Nicholson undertook the compilation of the Annals of Kendal, a work which was received with so much marked and deserved favour by the inhabitants.

The following year the Burneside paper mills were commenced by them for the purpose of making paper by machinery; they likewise took over the old hand-made paper works at Cowan Head, and worked away till Nicholson left Kendal about 1845, when the mills were sold to Mr. James Cropper.

Twelve years later John Hudson retired to a well earned rest, and the business, after a few more years, passed into the possession of Alderman Titus Wilson, who has so praiseworthily maintained its good name.

From the illustration it will be seen that the author is fortunate enough to have his offices situated above the luck-penny in this romantic old bit of Kirkby Kendal. John F Curwen, Kirkbie Kendal (1900) p76