The town of Kendal is very large, lying under a great hill to the west; the river to the east. Upon the rise of the hill is a place called Castle-low hill, which has been a castle raised in Saxon times, fortified with a ditch where not naturally steep, and a keep or artificial mount; a sorry way of encampment: the keep is narrow at top, and cannot contain above forty people: they are much too high to offend an enemy, and have no ground to defend. Above this are great scars, or mountains, of a hard kind of stone like porphyry, that will yield to no tool: they break it up in small shivers, for building, by the force of a heavy gaveloc and sledge-hammer. I saw several pretty springs running out of little hollows of the rock, especially toward the upper part; and most of the _strata_ thereabouts drip continually: the workmen told me, that those cracks where the springs are go a great length into the mountain; and that the _strata_ all round the hill lie declining with the side of the hill; that some _strata_ are soft and porous, which lets the water strain through them; whilst others by their hardness stop it, and turn it all into the cracks and fissures; that these springs run very sparingly in dry weather: this shows that they are made only of the rain and dews falling upon the hill, and collected into these channels, which being generally perpetual, and in sufficient quantity one time with another, render the springs so. There is a spring on the top of Penigent hill, the highest in these parts. In this country vast stones like the grey weathers in Wiltshire, lie upon the surface, and by the sides of the hills, which are no part of the quarry, being of a different stone. On the other side of the town eastward, and over the river, is Kendal castle; a large stone building on a solitary _apex_, but not extraordinary high: it is fenced with a wall and ditch: they report that queen Catharine Parr was born here. This town has been built mostly with pent-houses and galleries over them all along the streets, somewhat like Chester. The carts or carriages of this country are small machines, with two wheels each, made of three pieces of timber, fastened to a cross axle-tree, which turns with the wheels: the cart is laid upon these wheels _pro tempore_, kept from slipping off the axle-tree by two pins underneath: they are drawn by one horse.[1] They say these carriages, of a light burthen and with one horse, answer better in this stony country than heavier, which are shook to pieces presently: hence Nature makes the horses of this country small in bulk. Here is an anchorite’s house with a very fine spring: near was a chapel of St. Mary, Abbot’s hall, and some other ruins of religious places. The church is a handsome and very large structure, consisting of five ailes: a good organ: several ancient chapels in it, with the tombs of the founders; one of Roos. The parishes of this country are generally of great extent, having several chapels of ease.