Kirby Knowle: A Castle with Two Names and One Too Many Stories

Towering above the western edge of the quiet village of Kirby Knowle, this brooding grand house is marked on Ordnance Survey maps as “Newbuilding.”¹Although I see the little map extract below refers to Kirby Knowle Castle. The estate agents, less taken with that name, now refer to it in brochures as plain Kirby Knowle. The asking price is £7 million, in case you are tempted.²Kirby Knowle. Savills. https://search.savills.com/property-detail/gbyorsyos250117

The “New Building” name dates from 1654, when James Danby bought what remained of the ruined Kirby Knowle Castle and set about restoring it. He added a new south front and west wing using stone looted from nearby Upsall Castle. The name stuck, though I’m sure hardly anyone liked it.³Historic England Research Records. Monument Number 55489 https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=55489&resourceID=19191⁴Wikipedia. Kirby Knowle Castle. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby_Knowle_Castle

The original castle was begun in the late 1200s by Sir Roger de Lascelles, with royal approval from Edward I. By the time Sir John Constable owned it, a fire in 1568 left much of it in ruins. It stood neglected until Danby turned up. Somewhere in between, there is a rumour — slightly dubious as far as I can see — that Mary Queen of Scots was a regular visitor during the ownership of one Sir Thomas Rokeby. This is no more credible than a story published in the Whitby Gazette in 1905 by Richard Blakeborough, but it lingers on in estate agents’ brochures.⁵THE GOOD WITCH OF HAMBLETON. | Whitby Gazette | Friday 12 May 1905 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2023. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19050512/101/0006> [accessed 23 May 2023]

I’ve given Blakeborough’s tale its own page, which is only fair, if only to reduce the length of this post. It is the usual type: oral tradition dressed up as local history, embellished over time, and now passed off as folklore. Blakeborough claimed he could trace its roots back at least 200 years before he was writing in 1905. The core remains a fireside story, with added colour as the years demanded it.

Link to “The Good Witch of Hambleton”.

The legend centres on Ursula, a miller’s daughter, and Dick of Borrowby, who are young and in love. Their happiness is cut short when a priest at Upsall Castle becomes obsessed with Ursula. She quickly sees through his false sanctity and spurns him. Enraged by rejection, the priest has her abducted and locked in a dungeon.

She resists, threatens suicide, and is saved — first by a rat, who ruins her poisoned food and delivers a note from Dick, and then by an army of rats and an old woman who appears through a hidden passage. The rats attack the priest; Ursula escapes to Dick, who is waiting. The priest does not survive.

Blakeborough goes further. He says that Dick, falsely accused by the priest, flees on foot. He meets a strange old woman, is sent to the Witch of Black Hambleton, and shown Ursula’s fate in a scrying bowl. The witch summons rats and rabbits. The rats find Ursula; the rabbits dig a tunnel into the castle. In the end, Ursula is freed, the priest is killed, and the hill is said to hold magic still.

As stories go, it is nonsense, but finely crafted nonsense — and more entertaining than the estate agent’s copy.

• 1
  Although I see the little map extract below refers to Kirby Knowle Castle.
• 2
  Kirby Knowle. Savills. https://search.savills.com/property-detail/gbyorsyos250117
• 3
  Historic England Research Records. Monument Number 55489 https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=55489&resourceID=19191
• 4
  Wikipedia. Kirby Knowle Castle. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby_Knowle_Castle
• 5
  THE GOOD WITCH OF HAMBLETON. | Whitby Gazette | Friday 12 May 1905 | British Newspaper Archive’. 2023. Britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk <https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001103/19050512/101/0006> [accessed 23 May 2023]