Kirkby Thore is a small

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Cumbria Cumbria ( ) is a ceremonial county in North West England. It borders the Scottish council areas of Dumfries and Galloway and Scottish Borders to the north, Northumberland and County Durham to the east, North Yorkshire to the south-east, Lancash ...

, England (), in the historic county of

Westmorland Westmorland (, formerly also spelt ''Westmoreland''R. Wilkinson The British Isles, Sheet The British IslesVision of Britain/ref>) is an area of North West England which was Historic counties of England, historically a county. People of the area ...

. It is close to the

Lake District The Lake District, also known as ''the Lakes'' or ''Lakeland'', is a mountainous region and National parks of the United Kingdom, national park in Cumbria, North West England. It is famous for its landscape, including its lakes, coast, and mou ...

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

and the Cumbrian

Pennines The Pennines (), also known as the Pennine Chain or Pennine Hills, are a range of highland, uplands mainly located in Northern England. Commonly described as the "Vertebral column, backbone of England" because of its length and position, the ra ...

. It includes the areas of Bridge End, in the southwest by the A66, and Cross End in the northeast of the village. In the 2001 census, the parish had a population of 731, increasing to 758 in the 2011 Census. The market town of

Appleby-in-Westmorland Appleby-in-Westmorland is a market town and civil parish in Westmorland and Furness, Cumbria, England, with a population of 3,048 at the 2011 Census. Crossed by the River Eden, Appleby is the county town of the historic county of Westmorland. ...

is about away, and the larger town of Penrith is about away.

History

The place-name 'Kirkby Thore' is first attested in 1179 in the 'Register of Holm Cultram', where it appears as ''Kirkebythore''. ''Kirkby'' means 'church village' or 'village with a church', whilst ''Thore'' is an

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

personal name related to the god

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

. The village is on the site of a Roman cavalry camp called Bravoniacum or ''Brovonacae'' and Roman coins, tombstones, sandals, urns, earthen vessels, and the cusp of a spear have been found in the locality. Since the time of Septimius Severus's campaigns between 208 and 211 CE, a division of Numidian auxiliary light cavalry garrisoned the fort of Bravoniacum, constituting the first African community in Britain. The

Maiden Way The Maiden Way or Maidenway (Middle English: ''Maydengathe''; ) was a roughly Roman road in northern Britain connecting the Roman fort of Bravoniacum ( Kirkby Thore) near Penrith with that of Magnis (Carvoran) on Hadrian's Wall, via ...

Roman road Roman roads ( ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Republic and the Roman Em ...

led north from Bravoniacum to the fort of Epiacum ( Whitley Castle) near Alston, and thence to Magnae (

Carvoran Magnis or Magna was a Roman Empire, Roman castra, fort near Hadrian's Wall in northern Roman Britain, Britain. Its ruins are now known as and are located near Carvoran, Northumberland, in northern England. It was built on the Stanegate fronti ...

) on

Hadrian's Wall Hadrian's Wall (, also known as the ''Roman Wall'', Picts' Wall, or ''Vallum Aelium'' in Latin) is a former defensive fortification of the Roman province of Roman Britain, Britannia, begun in AD 122 in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian. Ru ...

, where it joined the

Stanegate The Stanegate (meaning "stone road" in Northumbrian dialect) was an important Roman road and early frontier built in what is now northern England. It linked many forts including two that guarded important river crossings: Corstopitum (Corbr ...

road running from west to east. A possible continuation from there ran east to Banna ( Birdoswald) and then north to the Shrine of Cocidius ( Bewcastle). It was reported in 2016 that

LIDAR Lidar (, also LIDAR, an acronym of "light detection and ranging" or "laser imaging, detection, and ranging") is a method for determining ranging, ranges by targeting an object or a surface with a laser and measuring the time for the reflected li ...

technology has revealed another Roman road running southwest from Kirkby Thore to the Roman fort at Low Borrowbridge near Tebay. Roman Milestone on A66 - geograph

The

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church of St Michael in Kirkby Thore is built of red

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

and dates from Norman times. The village also had a

Methodist Methodism, also called the Methodist movement, is a Protestant Christianity, Christian Christian tradition, tradition whose origins, doctrine and practice derive from the life and teachings of John Wesley. George Whitefield and John's brother ...

chapel. The village is also home to Kirkby Thore Hall, a Grade II* medieval Manor House of particular structural interest.

Gypsum Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate Hydrate, dihydrate, with the chemical formula . It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, drywall and blackboard or sidewalk ...

has been quarried or mined in the area for over 200 years. The local British Gypsum Ltd plant has produced

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of buildings, while "re ...

since 1910 and plasterboard since the 1960s. Currently it is more economic to use desulpho-gypsum transported by rail from Drax Power Station than to mine it locally but this depends on Drax continuing. British Gypsum has a private siding on the Settle-Carlisle Railway which passes to the north of the village. There are a number of farms in the village and surrounding area. Some are large dairy farms, others beef and/or sheep with some arable crops.

Governance

Kirkby Thore is in the parliamentary constituency of Westmorland and Lonsdale.

Transport and facilities

The busy A66 road runs through the western edge of the village. This will be one of the last sections of the A66 to be upgraded to dual carriageway; in 2006 the

Highways Agency National Highways (NH), formerly Highways England and before that the Highways Agency, is a government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A roads in England. It also sets highways standards u ...

conducted public consultation on the route for a bypass (which will connect the existing Appleby bypass to the east and the Temple Sowerby bypass (opened in part October 2007, ahead of schedule) to the west. The public consultation fell by the wayside and dualling of the A66 at Kirkby Thore is still an aspiration. A subsequent scheme began its proposal stages in 2019. The village contains a

village shop A general merchant store (also known as general merchandise store, general dealer, village shop, or country store) is a rural or small-town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, someti ...

with

post office A post office is a public facility and a retailer that provides mail services, such as accepting letter (message), letters and parcel (package), parcels, providing post office boxes, and selling postage stamps, packaging, and stationery. Post o ...

, and a

filling station A filling station (also known as a gas station [] or petrol station []) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold are gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Fuel dispensers are used to ...

(and shop).

Notable people

Sibling A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the other person. A male sibling is a brother, and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child. While some circumstances can cause siblings to be raised ...

s Helen Skelton and Gavin Skelton grew up in a farm near the village and attended Kirkby Thore Primary School before transferring to Appleby Grammar School. Helen is now a television presenter, best known for working on '' Blue Peter'' and '' Countryfile'', whilst Gavin is a professional footballer who has played in the

Scottish Premier League The Scottish Premier League (SPL) was the Scottish football league system, top-level league competition for professional Association football, football clubs in Scotland. The league was founded in 1998, when it broke away from the Scottish Foo ...

with Gretna, Kilmarnock and Hamilton Academicals. During 2016 he was player-manager of Queen of the South in

Dumfries Dumfries ( ; ; from ) is a market town and former royal burgh in Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, near the mouth of the River Nith on the Solway Firth, from the Anglo-Scottish border. Dumfries is the county town of the Counties of Scotland, ...

. He was appointed assistant manager of Carlisle United in June 2019.

References

External links