# K Shoes / Clarks / Springers Shoe Repair Factory - Kendal



## Derelict-UK (Feb 2, 2012)

I went back to my home town of Kendal in Cumbria a couple of weeks back and noticed the area of the old Springers factory that used to repair shoes for Clarks is now a housing estate!!

Kendal (home of K Shoes, aka Kendal Shoes, bought out by Clarks) once employed over 1,000 people in the shoe making business and in 1994 it sold nearly 1 million shoes from the Springer range to North America!

When I was a lad and still at school I watched as the first of the factory buildings were demolished. A factory that had been visited by the Queen.

The reason for it's closure was to source cheaper labour from overseas.

Eventually the shoe making in Kendal stopped production and not long after Springers stopped repairing shoes as this also went abroad.

We still have the brand new K Shoes outlet branch in place of the old main factory, but it's shit. 

We also have the Clarks warehouse distribution centre (where I worked for 6 months of my life) which distributes sale shoes to different outlet Clarks stores around the UK.


Anyway, here is an article about K Shoes winning an award in 1994, shame the reporter couldn't spell Kendal correctly though...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/b...lk-off-with-export-award-k-shoes-1616494.html


And here are my pictures of the old Springers Factory on Natland Road, not much inside but it's the history that counts!

Taken in 2005.







































*D-UK*


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## Landsker (Feb 2, 2012)

Nice, like all the apple stickers!


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## TeeJF (Feb 3, 2012)

Love the wall and stickers shot to bits!


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## RichardH (Feb 3, 2012)

There's a chap at work who does this. There is a piece of abstract art on the side of a filing cabinet made entirely from apple stickers. No other fruit stickers are allowed, only apple ones. He's an accountant: I'm not sure if that is significant.


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