"Beware of Doors.”

When I first moved to Kendal, about a year ago, I fell well and truly in love with the architecture. The town is very higgledly piggledy with lots of windy streets and “yards” – passages that look like they don’t lead anywhere until you head down them and find amazing shops and an unexpected pub and things. It looks quite chaotic and unplanned but a lot of the street layout has been the same since the town was established so there’s a real sense of continuity.

One of the things I like the most about the town’s architecture is the number of interesting doors. I was really stuck by this when I first moved here. I’d read Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere a few months earlier and was paying close attention to any interesting doors I came across in case they led to  a secret underground world. Kendal has tonnes of lovely but anassuming buildings with doors that look like they lead somewhere. When I moved here I decided it’d be fun to get photos of as many as I could. Almost one year later, I’ve made a start. It’s surprisingly awkward going up to a building and and taking a photo of someone’s door. There’s the worry that people will think you’re sizing it up for an elaborate burglary and such like but at the moment Kendal’s full of crazy tourists so it kind of feels ok at the moment.

I thought I'd start with some doors I walk past on my way to and from work.

This is the door to Dower House Antiques. Very nice and Georgian. It feels a bit like something from a period drama.

The shop front still has original (I assume) window frames and they are lovely. As are the fluted pillars and the duck egg blue paint. I've not actually been in there to have a mooch around yet as it's slightly too far to go on my work breaks.

I'm assuming the Dower reference might imply the building's origianal use as a home for a widow or dowager somehow linked to one of the large Kendal families (as in the Castle Dairy's heritage)

Next up we have the delights of Kendal Parish Church. Which is apparently only slightly less wide than York Minster. Which is why I did a rubbish job of fitting the whole thing into the picture.

(Just as an aside. This is the writing on the very ornately carved cross in front of the church.)



Oh no, Instagram!



More Instagrammyness but this door is just wonderful. Its just to the right of the big main door (above) and looks like it probably leads to spiral stairs or a tiny medieval broom cupboard.

  

Once you see one interesting door, you start seeing them everywhere. This could become quite a fun obsession.