Kirkbymoorside Yorkshire Family History Guide

Kirkbymoorside is an Ancient Parish and a market town in the county of Yorkshire.

Other places in the parish include: Kirkbymoorside St Aidan, Kirby Mills, Keldholme, Gillamoor, Farndale West Side, Farndale West, Farndale Low Quarter, Farndale High Quarter, Farndale, Fadmore, Fadmoor, Cockham, Cockayne, Cockan, Cockam, Bransdale East Side, and Bowforth and Southfield.

Alternative names: Kirkby Moorside, Kirby Moorside

Parish church: All Saints

Parish registers begin:

Kirkbymoorside

Parish registers: 1622
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1600

Gillamoor

Parish registers: None
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1667

Cockayne

Parish registers: None
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1626

Farndale

Parish registers: None
Bishop’s Transcripts: 1661

Nonconformists include: Independent/Congregational, Primitive Methodist, Society of Friends/Quaker, and Wesleyan Methodist.

Table of Contents

Adjacent Parishes

View Location on UK Great Britain, Ordnance Survey (1:1 million-1:10,560), 1900s – Full Screen

Parish History

The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales 1870

KIRKBY-MOORSIDE, a small town, a township, a parish, and a sub-district in Helmsley district, N. R. Yorkshire. The town stands on the river Dove, in Farndale, 6 miles ENE of Helmsley and 7 ½ WNW of Pickering r. station; is almost surrounded by steep hills, in the centre of a large agricultural tract; is irregularly built, but pleasant; is a seat of petty sessions and a polling place; and has a post office under York, a banking office, three chief inns, a new building called the Tolbooth, a church, four dissenting chapels, a mechanics’ institute, an agricultural society, a workhouse, and charities £27.

The church is ancient, chiefly decorated English; comprises nave, aisle, and chancel, with massive circular S porch; has a W tower, of 1803, battlemented and pinnacled; and contains a fine brass of Lady Brooke and her eleven children.

A weekly market is held on Wednesday; fairs are held on Whit-Wednesday, 18 Sept., and the Wednesday after 5 Nov.; and malting, brewing, rope making, agricultural implement making, Windsor chair making, iron and brass founding, and brick and tile making, are carried on.

A Cistertian nunnery stood about a mile from the town; was founded, in the time of Hen’ I., by Robert de Stuteville; went, at the dissolution, to the Earl of Westmoreland; fell, in the time of Elizabeth, to the Crown; was given, by James I., to the first Duke of Buckingham; and was sold by the second Duke, the noted George Villiers, to an ancestor of Sir Charles Duncombe, the present owner of the manor.

Duke Villiers, after a ruinous course of extravagance and dissipation, died in a house still standing in the market place, next door to the King’s Head inn; and the poet Pope, in correctly designating that house as an inn, and otherwise indulging in poetic exaggeration, describes the death in the following well known lines:-

“In the worst inn’s worst room, with mat half-hung,
The floors of plaster and the walls of dung,
On once a flock bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains, never meant to draw,
The George and Garter dangling from that bed
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies-alas ! how changed from him,
That life of pleasure, and that soul of whim !
Gallant and gay in Cliveden’s proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love:
Or just as gay at council, in a ring
Of mimic statesmen, and their merry king.
No wit to flatter left of all his store !
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more.
There, victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends.”

The township comprises 4, 136 acres. Real property, £6, 938. Pop., 1,851. Houses, 411. The parish contains also the townships of Fadmore, Gillamoor, Farndale-Low-Quarter, and Farndale-High-Quarter. Acres, 21, 681. Real property, £12, 350; of which £60 are in mines. Pop., 2, 659. Houses, 574. The property is not much divided. Coal is worked, and limestone and freestone are quarried. Remains of an ancient castle are in the centre of the Manor vale; and large quantities of fossil bones have been found. The living is a vicarage, united with the chapelries of Gillamoor and Cockan, in the diocese of York. Value, £417. Patron, the Lord Chancellor.

The sub-district contains also four other parishes and parts of five others; and is a poor law union. Acres, 58, 631. Poor rates in 1863, £1, 674. Pop. in 1851, 5, 623; in 1861, 5, 739. Houses, 1, 196. The workhouse, at the census of 1861, had 40 inmates.

Source: The Imperial Gazetteer of England & Wales [Wilson, John M]. A. Fullarton & Co. N. d. c. [1870-72].

A Topographical Dictionary of England 1848

KIRKBY-MOORSIDE (All Saints), a market-town and parish, in the union of Helmsley, wapentake of Ryedale, N. riding of York; containing, with the townships of Fadmoor, Farndale West-side, and Farndale Low-Quarter, and the chapelry of Gillimoor, 2482 inhabitants, of whom 1905 are in the township of Kirkby-Moorside, 29 miles (N. by E.) from York, and 224 (N. by W.) from London.

A Cistercian nunnery stood about a mile from the town; it was founded in the reign of Henry I. by Robert de Stuteville, and, on its Dissolution, had an income of £29. 6. 1. a year, and was granted to the Earl of Westmorland. In the year 1813, when its foundations were cleared away, several stone coffins were found. The manor was forfeited by the earl upon his attainder, in the reign of Elizabeth, and remained with the crown till it was bestowed by James I. upon his favourite, the Duke of Buckingham, whose son, after a life of dissipation, died here in comparative poverty. The estate was afterwards sold to Sir Charles Duncombe, ancestor of the present owner.

The town is irregularly built on a rather elevated site, bounded on two sides by hills; and the scenery around is picturesque, embracing the vales of Kirkdale, Sleightholmedale, and Dowthwaite, and the eastern moors of Yorkshire, which border on the valleys. In the vicinity are several corn mills; a considerable quantity of malt is made; and near the town are limestone and freestone quarries, and coal-mines. The market is on Wednesday; and fairs are held on the Wednesday in Whitsun-week and Sept. 18th, for cattle, sheep, &c.

The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king’s books at £14. 0. 10., and in the patronage of the Crown; net income, £417; impropriator, Lord Feversham: the glebe comprises 62½ acres, besides 30½ acres of moor allotment. The church is a neat edifice, and contains some ancient portions, with later insertions; it has some interesting memorials, among which is a curious marble monument with carved figures of Lady Brooke and her six sons and five daughters, all in a kneeling posture.

There are chapels of ease at Cockan and Gillimoor; and the Society of Friends, Independents, Wesleyans, and Ranters, have places of worship. Some remains exist of the walls of the manor-house anciently belonging to the Neville family; and about three miles northward is a cairn, opened by Professor Phillips within the last few years, and left by him in a state to be examined by the curious. At a further distance of three miles in the same direction are three tumuli.

Source: A Topographical Dictionary of England by Samuel Lewis 1848

Crime & Punishment

Criminal faces of North Shields

Jane Ann Teasdale of Court Hill, Farndale, Kirby Moorside

Name: Jane A. Teasdale
Arrested for: not given
Arrested at: North Shields Police Station
Arrested on: 9 September 1915

Jane A. Teasdale arrested for obtaining food and lodgings by false pretences

The Shields Daily News for 17 September 1915 reports:

“FALSE PRETENCES CASE. A SERVANT GIRL CHARGED AT NORTH SHIELDS.

Today at North Shields, Jane Ann Teasdale (21) of Court Hill, Farndale, Kirby Moorside, was brought up on remand, charged with unlawfully and knowingly, by a certain false pretence, obtaining from one Elizabeth Goodwill certain food and lodgings to the amount of 7s 11d with intent to cheat and defraud, between the 2nd and 8th September.

Elizabeth Goodwill of 3 St George’s Place, Front Street, Cullercoats, stated that at 1pm on the 2nd inst. defendant came to her house and asked for a room for the winter months. She said she had come from Kirby Moorside to a situation at 9 Northumberland Terrace, Tynemouth, and her box was there. Witness took her in and on the Sunday a letter came and defendant said it was from her father, who was coming to the house. Witness became suspicious and went to the above address and found the place closed. The father never came. Later the defendant admitted having written the letter herself. Witness supplied her with food to the amount of 8s.

Mary Sisson of 9 Northumberland Terrace, Tynemouth, said that defendant came to her house for a situation and said she had been sent from a registry office. Witness engaged her as a day girl; she had no box. PC Colpitts said that at 10.30 am on the 8th inst. he saw defendant at the first witness’s house and took her into custody. When charged she replied “Get me some work to do, but don’t send me back home”. Defendant pleaded guilty and had nothing to say. She was then further charged with having obtained, by means of a certain false pretence, 2s, the property of Grace Annie Kerrick Walker on the 4th inst.

Grace Annie Kerrick Walker said that defendant came to her on the 4th and asked for the loan of 2s. She said she was staying with Mrs Goodwill and had paid her in advance. Witness gave her the 2s. Mrs Goodwill, recalled, said from the 2nd inst. to the 8th inst. she never received any money from defendant. PC Colpitts said that when he charged her with this offence she made nor reply. Defendant pleaded guilty and said that she wanted to be sent to a home. In February last year defendant was bound over for stealing shoes.

Miss Moffatt, the missioner, said she had a talk with defendant yesterday and she said she came to Whitley to be nearer her sweetheart, who is a soldier. Since she got into trouble her sweetheart had cast her off. She said her father was good to her but her mother was not. In reply to the Chairman (Dr Peart) Miss Moffatt said she thought the Salvation Army Home at South Shields would take her in. Defendant was remanded until tomorrow”.

These images are taken from an album of photographs of prisoners brought before the North Shields Police Court between 1902 and 1916 (TWAM ref. DX1388/1).

Tyne and Wear Archives ref: DX1388-1-250-Jane A Teasdale

Source: Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums