Highgate

The road to the south from the centre of Kendal it was also know as the South Road or Soutergate. Later it became known as Highgate. It runs north - south from Finkle Street where it meets Stricklandgate to Blind Beck where it meets Kirkland. On the west side it is joined by Allhallows Lane and Gillinggate and on the east side by Lowther Street and Dowker Lane.

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

"The Land by the river side, saturated with the constant overflow of the rapid stream, was far too swampy ground to permit of the town's main road - North and South - passing along it. So that those that passed too and fro, being mindful of the ague, chose the higher and harder ground on the west side,and thereon they built, filling in and solidifying a number of footpaths down from this highway to their workshops on the river banks. In this we see at once the origin and cause of our many yards - footways down to the stream or up to the common land on the fells - which were by the gradual embankment of the river and the enclosing of the fell lands made available, by degrees, for building purposes. This Higherway, or Highgate, became known an designated in the days of Good Queen Bess, and in the Boke off Recorde, as the South or Soutergate."