Today was our first wet day in the Lake District, but we spent much of it indoors anyway. We started out at the Cumbria Record Office where the archives of parish records for the area are kept. It was easy to spend several hours looking at microfilms of the baptisms and marriages of our Gradwells as well as reading about life in Kendal at the beginning of the 18th century. The records we found confirmed that we were walking the streets known to our forebears. Kendal has demolished a great many of its older buildings, but some remain and the street names are still there.

We walked through town to the Brewery Arts Centre for a late lunch, then walked on to Abbot Hall, home of the Lakeland Museum, a fine visual history of the area told with the household things they would have used. A leisurely walk back along the river to our car ended the day. Tomorrow we head to Patterdale, via Ambleside and probably a few scenic stops, to end up at our next B&B. No Internet available there, so probably no more posts here until the weekend.