England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Kirby Ravensworth St Peter & St Felix

The Parish

The parish of Kirby Ravensworth, often rendered Kirkby but we follow the modern Ordnance Survey in removing the "k" from Kirby Hill, lies in the far north of Yorkshire not too far from its border with County Durham. The parish name comes from a concatenation of its two principal settlements, Kirby Hill, which has the church, and Ravensworth, the larger of the two settlements. Ravensworth is located about 5 miles northwest of the market town of Richmond, Kirby Hill being a mile south of Ravensworth, and sits a mile south of the A66 Trans-Pennine road linking the A1 through to the A6 & M6 at Penrith. A extensive parish which included the easternmost ranges of the Pennines, it woulld have had a varied economy, farming in the main with arable in the lower parts ranging through cattle pastures upwards to rough moorland grazing dominated by sheep; in addition there was extensive quarrying of the local freestone and for a time a copper mine, ultimately uneconomic, was worked. The Holm Beck, later renamed to Gilling Beck, drains the parish southeastwards joining the Swale to the east of Richmond, thence down through Yorkshire to reach the North Sea through the Humber Estuary. Ravensworth is sited at around 120 metres above the sea, Kirby Hill, as its name suggests, sits on a sharp rise in land at close to 210 metres and land continues to rise southwestwards on to the Pennine Moors topping out at 385 metres on Gayles Moor. Kirby Ravensworth parish was one of the most extensive in the country, typical of an upland and northern parish, it covered close to 14,000 acres and betwee its main settlements and many farms would have supported a population of a little over 1,400 parishioners. Unusually, being so far north, Ravensworth is mentioned in Domesday Book as held by Count Alan of Brittany, a relatively minor place offering just 8 ploughs with a small meadow.

The Church

St Peter St Felix' church sits within the smaller settlement of Kirby Hill adjacent to its splendid village green and with a fine view across the lower range of the parish towards Ravensworth below. The church consists of 3 main periods of build reflected in today's fabric. The earliest portion is the chancel which is Norman Romanesque in style and dates from the 12th century. In the early 13th century there was a period of rebuild which saw the earlier chancel arch replaced by another to the east of the Norman original and in the Early English Gothic style, that style carries onward into the arcades and the vestry. It was in the late 14th century and in the Perpendicular style that the next major changes were wrought with the addition of the mighty western tower as well as southern aisle and the clerestory. The church sits just south of the main lane running through Kirby Hill where the extensive village green, roughly surfaced roads encircle it, can be found, parking off the green is freely available. A flower-boarded pathway leads into the churchyard which is bordered by a low, local stone, wall. Sadly the entire western end of the church is tightly enclosed within dense trees which severly restrict the better views of the Perpendicular tower.