73 Stricklandgate

Between what is now 83 Stricklandgate (Leeds Building Society) and 71 Stricklandgate (McDonalds) this was on the site of what is now 75 Stricklandgate (Kendal Post Office).

"Adjoining (71 Stricklandgate) is the well-built house which bears on the head of the leaden spout the Strickland Arms, and the initials JSF 1711, which doubtless designate John and Frances Strickland, the builder of this house and his wife. John, who was Mayor of Kendal 1717-18, is supposed to have been a lead merchant. His wife Francis was the daughter of Edward Backhouse, of Morland, and seems to have been curiously connected with the 24th of June, for it is quaintly recorded on a brass plate in Kendal Church that she was - Born the 24th June 1690, Marry'd the 24th June 1708, Bury'd the 24th June 1725.

This house is said to have been the town house of the Stricklands, of Sizergh, and that it is not improbable that when it ceased to be useful in this respect, it fell to a descendant of a younger branch, who engaged meritoriously in trade, the estates following the elder line.

On the back side of the house there is a spout head which is marked IHM 1732 for John and Mary Harrison. He was recorder from 1699 to 1715, and grandfather of Myles Harrison, "the blind lawyer", and recorder from 1777 until his death in 1797. Harrison must have bought it of John Strickland. It is said that Myles's father had four wives, and when joking on the subject, instead of apologizing, he, like any other blue beard, would reply, quoting old Bishop Thomas of Lincoln, "If I survive I will have five". Whether he had a contract then pending, conditional on events, is not recorded in the files of papers he left to his executors to destroy.

Following a Miss Dyson, Dr Thomas Gough came to reside here subsequent to the year 1860, and towards the close of his life. Born in 1804, he was the eldest son of John Gough, the "blind philosopher", and nephew to Dr. Thomas Harrison, with whom he was placed as an apprentice. After the death of Harrison in 1835, Gough stepped in to his shoes, and trod them with an even step. He rose at once into full confidence and practice, and, from the first day of his professional career to the last, earned the gratitude and enjoyed the estem of his numerous patients. But Gough has a name to live beyond his profession. With the help of his friend C. Nicholson, he founded the Kendal Natural History and Scientific Society, became curator of the Museum, and was the collector and donor of that remarkable set of fossils for which our Museum is justly noted. He died July, 1880."

"Kirkbie Kendal", John F Curwen, 1900