KIRKBY-KENDAL, or KIRKBY-IN-KENDAL (the Kirk-Town of Ken Dale), market-town and parliamentary borough, county of Westmorland, is situated in a pleasant valley, on the E. bank of the Ken or Kent, 50 miles S. of Carlisle. The general appearance of the place is agreeable—a long line of white walls and blue-slate roofs, rows of poplars, neat stone bridges, background of hills, and in the distance, up the valley, the high summits that overlook Kentmere. Its position is probably the main cause of its being one of the most rainy places in England. On a steep eminence to the E. are the ruins of the castle of the Kendal barons, of which only four broken towers, and the outer wall surrounded by a deep fosse, remain. It was here that Queen Catherine Parr was born, and her remains are interred in the parish church. Facing Kendal Castle on the W. is the Castle-How, or Castle-Law-Hill, an ancient mound encircled by a ditch and rampart, and surmounted by an obelisk of modern erection in commemoration of the Revolution of 1688. Kendal has been noted for its woollen manufactures since the fourteenth century, when a colony of Flemish weavers settled here by the invitation of Edward III. The manufacture of green cloth seems to have acquired considerable reputation before Shakespeare's time, who speaks of

"Three misbegotten knaves in Kendal green."

To the branches of industry connected with these manufactures, several others are now added, as marble cutting, currying, &c. The town is respectably supplied with educational and literary institutions, and publishes two weekly newspapers. By the Reform Act, which disfranchised Appleby, Kendal returns one M.P., Dr Thomas Shaw, the celebrated traveller, was born here in 1693. Pop. 11,829.