The pub was built in 1741 in the grounds of the Kendal parish church by Thomas Barker, the church sexton of the time. It is thought that he ordered the pub to be built to serve the needs of the church wardens.
It is said to have been called the Thomas Barker until the early 1800’s when it was renamed the Ring O Bells.
The sign for the inn was painted by Jack Fothergill in 1814 when John Reid of Heversham took over ownership. The sing represented the church tower and bell ringers with a jug of ale between them. When John Reid died in 1830, the inn’s sign was sold to Obadiah Burrows of the Eagle and Child inn at Heversham. The sign was then discovered a few years later, being used as a draught screen. It was purchased by Thomas Jennings who restored it and returned it to the inn. The original inn sign is now situated in the North Aisle of the church in Kirkland, whilst a copy is mounted on the gable end of the inn.
It’s rumoured that Bonnie Prince Charlie used the inn when he passed through Kendal in 1745, stopping for a pint before moving onto his lodgings at Charlie’s Café further on in town.
Another famous visitor was rumoured to be Charles Dickens, who apparently called in at the inn when he was visiting his friend and champion Cumberland wrestler Thomas Longmire.
Some of the windows in our Lounge bar can be dated back to the 1800’s and have been scribed into the glass as follows:“A happy new year to John Reid, and God bless him, January 1, 1824”
Also, “Edward Brooks interned in a grave opposite, the first funeral of 1824.” This window is signed by William Dixon, Thomas Richardson, Luke Fawcett and William Warriner.
Another window has “Sally Gass” possibly in memory of a relative of Emma Gass who was the landlady from 1879 to 1894.
Down the inn yard, the Kirkland Girls Sunday School met, and it was from the bursar of Trinity College in Cambridge that a letter was written in 1860, to the vicar of Kendal Parish Church, stating that the “eyesore and the inconvenience known as the Ring O’Bells public house should be purchased and the site cleared for the building of a school.”
Stabling was added to the inn’s services in 1893, when some of the rear ground floor area of the inn was converted. The double doors can still be seen today.
