Kirkby Lonsdale, Westmorland Family History Guide
Kirkby Lonsdale is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Westmorland. Lupton is a chapelry of Kirkby Lonsdale.
Other places in the parish include: Tearnside, Low Biggin, Keastwick, Deans Biggin, Cowbrow, Casterton Holy Trinity, and Casterton.
Alternative names:
Parish church:
Parish registers begin:
Kirkby Lonsdale
Parish registers: 1538
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1676
Casterton Holy Trinity
Parish registers: 1837
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1833
Nonconformists include: Independent/Congregational, Sandemanian, and Wesleyan Methodist.
Table of Contents
Adjacent Parishes
- Dent, Yorkshire
- Whittington, Lancashire
- Leck, Lancashire
- Tunstal, Lancashire
- Barbon
- Lupton
- Hutton Roof
- Mansergh
Parish History
The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870
KIRKBY-LONSDALE, a town, a township, a parish, and a sub-district, in Kendal district, Westmoreland. The town stands on the river Lune, and on the Ingleton branch of the Northwestern railway, near the boundary with Lancashire, 11 miles SE by S of Kendal; seems to have risen around a very ancient church, the earliest in the valley of the Lune.
It took thence its name, which signifies the “Church Town of Lunesdale;” comprises a spacious market place, a main street, and a number of subordinate streets; consists chiefly of polished freestone houses, roofed with blue slate; commands, from some points, a brilliant view along the valley, past Casterton Fells, up to Ingleborough.
It is a seat of petty sessions and county courts, and a polling place; and has a post office, under Burton, Westmoreland, a railway station, a banking office, a principal inn, an old house noticed as an inn by “Drunken Barnaby, ” an ancient market cross, a market house, a bridge, a church, three dissenting chapels, a free grammar school, a mechanics’ institute, an agricultural society, and charities £219. The bridge is older than the time of Edward I.; has three ribbed arches; rises about 60 feet above the river’s bed; and was attributed, in old legend, to the devil.
The church stands on an eminence, 120 feet above the river; includes richly Norman parts; measures 120 feet in length, and 100 feet in width; has a W tower, 60 feet high; is interiorly disposed in four aisles; was stripped, about the beginning of the present century, of clerestory, battlements, pinnacles, and many interior decorations; and was being thoroughly restored in 1866.
The free grammar school was founded in 1591; and has £50 a year from endowment, four exhibitions to Queen’s College, Oxford, and six to Christ’s College, Cambridge. A weekly market is held on Thursday; and fairs are held on Holy Thursday, 5 Oct., and 21 Dec.
The township comprises 3,098 acres. Real property, £8, 483. Pop., 1,727. Houses, 338. The parish contains also the townships of Mansergh, Lupton, Hutton-Roof, Casterton, Barbon, Middleton, Killington, and Firbank. Acres, 35, 569. Real property, £30, 156; of which £347 are in quarries. Pop. in 1851, 4,184; in 1861, 4,365. Houses, 740. The increase of pop. was considerably due to temporary work in the forming of the Ingleton railway. The property, in many parts, is much subdivided.
The manor belonged to St. Mary’s abbey, York; passed to the Lowthers; and belongs now to their descendant, the Earl of Lonsdale. The parochial surface is very diversified and contains much fine scenery. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Carlisle. Value, £550. Patron, Trinity College, Cambridge. The p. curacies of Barbon, Casterton, Firbank, Hutton-Roof, Killington, Mansergh, and Middleton, are separate benefices. The sub-district excludes the Firbank township of K. L., but includes four townships of Burton-in-Kendal, one. of Beetham, and one of Heversham. Acres, 44, 255. Pop., 5, 734. Houses, 1, 185.
Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].
Kirkby Lonsdale Parish Records
FamilySearch
The memorial inscriptions of St. Mary the Virgin, Kirkby Lonsdale
Census returns for Kirkby-Lonsdale, 1841-1891
Births and baptisms, 1816-1836 Author: Back Lane Chapel (Kirkby-Lonsdale : Independent)
Parish registers for Barbon, 1813-1909 Author: Church of England. Chapelry of Barbon (Westmoreland)
Computer printout of Killington, Westmd., Eng
Computer printout of Middleton in Longsdale, Westmoreland, England
Parish register printouts of Kirkby-Lonsdale, Westmoreland, England ; christenings, 1813-1856
Westmorland Historical Directories
Administration
- County: Westmorland
- Civil Registration District: Kendal
- Probate Court: Court of the Bishop (Consistory) of the Commissary of the Archdeaconry of Richmond Western Deaneries – Kendal
- Diocese: Chester
- Rural Deanery: Kirkby Lonsdale
- Poor Law Union: Kendal
- Hundred: Lonsdale Ward
- Province: York