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Kirkdale (St. Gregory)

KIRKDALE (St. Gregory), a parish, in the union of Helmsley, wapentake of Ryedale, N. riding of York, 4¼ miles (E. by N.) from Helmsley; containing, with the townships of Bransdale West Side, Muscoates, Nawton, Skiplam, Welburn, and Wombleton, 1040 inhabitants. This parish, which is about 60 miles in circumference, has no village or township of its own name; the higher parts are mountainous moorland, and the lower a rich and luxuriant valley. Coal-mines are worked, and good limestone is obtained for building and for agricultural purposes. The living is a perpetual curacy; net income, £137; patrons, the University of Oxford; impropriators, John and Francis Barr, Esqrs., lords of the manor of Nawton. There are 3 acres of glebe. The church, which is in Welburn township, in the sequestered and finely-wooded valley of the Hodge beck, has been enlarged at various periods, and contains some Norman portions; the chancel is in the early English style. In the wall over the south door is a stone bearing a Saxon inscription, removed from its original situation, commemorative of the purchase and repairs of St. Gregory's church here, in the reign of the Confessor. At Nawton and Wombleton are places of worship for Wesleyans. In the celebrated Kirkdale Cave, varying from two to five feet in height and breadth, and extending for 300 feet into a solid white rock, various fossil remains of a hyena, elephant, rhinoceros, hippopotamus, and other animals, were found in the year 1820, imbedded in a layer of mud at the bottom of the cave, about one foot thick.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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