The laundry firm of Lakeland (later Lakeland Pennine) started life in 1890 with the opening of the Barrow and District Steam Laundry in Hindpool Road. The original Barrow firm was started by Walter and Agnes Milligan who lived at ‘Hollingarth’ on Abbey Road, now a nursery.

Within a few years their base in Hindpool Road, Barrow, had become the centre of a small but growing empire. They had bought the Whitehaven Steam Laundry, Ingleton Laundry, Kendal Steam Laundry and Grange and District Laundries. By 1935 they had taken over factories in West Cumberland and Carlisle and established a new laundry at Harraby.
A new laundry was opened in Barrow in 1937 and in 1972 the name was changed to Lakeland Pennine. By 1990 the group employed 900 staff in factories and offices from Barrow to Cramlington in the North East.

The Barrow factory had closed in the 1970s and the site was used for the new B&Q store (Now The Range) – leaving Barrow with headquarters offices and a dry cleaning and processing shop. In 1988 the decision was taken to move the headquarters from Barrow to Kendal.