Information About Our Village
By Colin
Despite the atmosphere in the village today, Burneside was an important site of industry in south Lakeland as far back as the middle ages.
The river that runs through Burneside is The River Kent. It runs twenty miles, from Kentmere, in the Lake District, to the sea at Morecambe Bay. During the twenty mile run, The River Kent falls an amazing Two Thousand Feet! The River’s other claim to fame, is that it had the most working mills on it in England, twenty-three to be exact.
The only mill left in operation in Burneside is Burneside paper mill, owned by James Cropper PLC.The paper made is exported all over the world to hundreds of different countries.Every year the mill makes Fifty Two Thousand, Seven Hundred and Twenty Five Tons of paper!
Sprint mill was initially a corn mill, and, as the oldest mill on the river, had priority over the water supply. The Lord of The Manor realised that he could reduce the levels of local unemployment and at the same time profit from the development of a textile mill upstream at about the time of the industrial revolution.
The most profitable mill in South Lakeland during the 18th century were cotton mills.
Up until 1820 Whitehaven and Lancaster were leading importers of cotton from the west Indies and therefore more cotton carding mills than anywhere else in Britain!
Sprint Mill has been destroyed twice by fire in it’s history and at one stage the owners applied for planning permission to build a gun powder mill on the site but were refused because of the; ‘risk to Kendal town centre could be assumed to be to great as there were no trees or hills between Sprint Mill and the town .