I found it - lurking behind a load of my partner's spy novels. How did that happen?
Here are some passages from a chapter named "Captain French Lane, Tenterfield and their characters" in Memories of Old Kendal by Jack O'Connor. Published 1961. I hope I'm not breaking the rules here and that the acknowledgement makes it legit!
"It would be difficult to separate Captain French from Tenterfield - one is part of the other. Captain French traditionally owes its name to a certain Captain French but our local chronology supplies the added name of Brougham's Lane, after the name of the parliamentary candidate in the 1818 election. Evidently, the inhabitants favoured the True Blues."
"In Speed's plan of 1614, this lane is called Rotten Row - or Routine Row - so named because the corteges went by that route from Soutergate to the old cemetry on Kirkbarrow, the church burial ground. The Captain French from whom it took its name was a churchwarden at the Parish Church in 1660. He it was, perhaps, who built most of the houses in the little thoroughfare."
" Like Fellside, Captain French and Tenterfield inhabitants had handlooms to provide them with extra bread and dripping."
" There is something about a community such as Captain French which is less noticeable in suburban areas. Interwoven into the fabric of the inhabitants' lives is something from the vocation they followed............As Kendal was divided from Kirkland by a tiny beck*, it follows that Captain French Lane had its territorial divisions. The clan spirit was as much in evidence as over the border. The place names are not recorded on the survey maps but Neddy Broo, Pig Hull Square, Back Folly and Bush Yard were thresholds over which you 'stept at thi peril.'"
" The names of the handloom weavers........included Tom Smith, Dick Troughton, Harry Wardley, William Wilcocks, Edward, Jackson, George Noble, Harry Megson and a Dixon whose forst name couldn't be remembered."
There is masses more of this but I don't want to post stuff which is not of interest so I'll stop there.
* the tiny beck in question is currently in spate, running literally just outside my front garden wall!
It was, like a lot of Kendal on this side of the river, basically an area of woollen industry. There are references to the tenterhooks on from which materials were stretched to dry. How many people when talking about being apprehensive about something, refer to being "on Tenderhooks", so misquoting the real term, of "on tenterhooks" which is what is is really all about.
If you want more, give me a shout.
Cheers,
Jen