The community now known as Kendal at Longwood was started by a group of Quakers in 1973. It was simply called “Kendal”. It was soon joined by a second community, Crosslands, on an adjacent plot of land and under common management. Over the following decades, a variety of other communities were added to the Kendal family, each locally managed. To distinguish the original “Kendal” from the rest, it took on the name Kendal at Longwood, which is used in contexts where there might be confusion.
That history has left us with three entities that can be called “Kendal”. We residents of Kendal at Longwood still refer to our community as “Kendal”. The management structure we share with Crosslands (and with two nearby smaller communities, Conniston and Cartmel), is known as “Kendal-Crosslands Communities” (KCC). The non-profit corporation to which all the Kendal locations belong is known as “The Kendal Corporation” (Kendal Corp).
When I use the word “Kendal” in this blog, you can assume I mean Kendal at Longwood. I’ll be more specific if the context requires it.
Leaving Kendal Corporation. On April 17, 2023, our CEO announced that Kendal-Crosslands Communities (which includes Kendal at Longwood) would be withdrawing from its affiliation with Kendal Corporation. The reasons are complex, but the decision seems to have been primarily about money. (You can read about it in this blog post and a number of subsequent ones.)
As a result of this decision, soon there will no longer be a connection between Kendal Corporation (and the dozen or so other “Kendal” communities affiliated with it) on one hand, and Kendal-Crosslands Communities on the other. Still, these entities will all continue to use the name “Kendal”. That is bound to create even more confusion around the meaning of “Kendal”. The issues surrounding disaffiliation, including shared use of the name “Kendal”, were finally resolved in early 2024.
On the Kendal Journey 