The secrets of Kendal's time guns

Available for over a year

Forget the speaking clock or pips, in the past you set your watch with a cannon going off! For nearly 75 years, dinner time was signalled with a deafening boom, which echoed around the town, and lifted the birds from the trees in Serpentine Woods were the gun was set on a plinth. Andrew Carter discovers how this time honoured institution continued until 1950, ending when the last canon mysteriously disappeared in the middle of the night.