Kendal Museum covers natural history, archaeology, and local history across several galleries, but its most cherished possession is the Alfred Wainwright gallery. Wainwright spent the working part of his life in Kendal and dedicated his spare time to producing the seven-volume Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells — hand-written, hand-drawn books of extraordinary beauty and precision that remain the standard reference for fell walkers sixty years after their publication.
Beyond Wainwright, the museum has good displays on the natural history of the Lake District and the Eden Valley, with fossils, minerals, and taxidermy specimens, and a local archaeology collection that includes finds from the Roman road network through Westmorland. The building itself, originally a wool warehouse on Station Road, is part of the interest. Admission is modest and the museum is rarely crowded.