Kendal Parish Church

Kendal Parish Church, also known as the Holy Trinity Church due to its dedication to the Holy Trinity, is the Anglican parish church of Kendal, Cumbria, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building.Visitors to the church are struck by its size and the lightness of the interior. This lightness is due to the unusual construction of five aisles, separated by columns and allowing generous window area. The nave is 800 years old and the other aisles have been added over the centuries so that, in its heyday, a congregation of 1100 was regularly accommodated.Anglo-Saxon churchA church was built on the site during the Anglo-Saxon period using material "robbed out" from the ruined Roman fort at Watercrook to the south of the town. A record in the Domesday Book, and the shaft of an Anglian cross, housed in the Parr Chapel, are dated at approximately AD 850.Norman periodWestmorland was only subdued by the Normans in 1092 and Ivo Taillebois (Anglicized, the name is translated to John Talbot) became the first Norman Baron of Kentdale, he gave the church and its lands to St Mary's Abbey in York. In 1189, the inhabitants of Kendal were massacred in church by Duncan, Earl of Fife. In 1201, the present building was constructed; the arch over the piscina was found carved with this date during Victorian restoration (1829).