Population 60 Civil parish Kirby Hill Sovereign state United Kingdom Shire county North Yorkshire | OS grid reference NZ139065 Country England Local time Tuesday 4:22 PM District Richmondshire | |
 | ||
Region Yorkshire and the Humber Weather 12°C, Wind W at 32 km/h, 57% Humidity | ||
Kirby Hill, historically also known as Kirby-on-the-Hill, is a village and civil parish in the Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire, England. It has a population of around 60, remaining less than 100 at the 2011 Census. Information regarding the population is now included within the pariah of Gayles. The village is 1 mile south of the larger village of Ravensworth.
Contents
Map of Kirby Hill, Richmond, UK
Kirby Hill is a small place, but it has long been important as the location of the parish church of the large ancient parish of Kirkby Ravensworth. Its large medieval parish church of St Peter and St Felix is a Grade I listed building. It was built in 1397, on the site of an Anglo-Saxon church. A memorial in the church commemorates the former rector Dr John Dakyn, who took part in, and is a noted chronicler of the Pilgrimage of Grace. A trust in his name still allocates educational grants to local youngsters. The church is also notable as the resting place of the last male descendant of the reformer John Wycliffe. In 1859, the centre of the village green featured "a beautiful spring", although it is no longer there. Pevsner described the village as "perfect and exceptional".
In 1866 Kirby Hill, until then a township in the parish of Kirkby Ravensworth, became a separate civil parish. Its small grammar school was closed in 1957, just one year after its 400th anniversary. There is an eighteenth-century public house.