Kirby Bank

Once a scene of industry, with an ‘alum house’ believed to be on the grassy tract on the right near the patch of gorse. The workings were higher up the bank, out of shot to the left, where the bridle way contours around the hillside. A wooden channel is thought to have carried the liquor down to the alum house after steeping. I don’t think there is any extant evidence of this industry.

The little white cottage on the right is part of the Toft Hill scout camp although the small gorse covered knoll behind it is called Ricey Hill¹Maps.nls.uk. (2022). View map: Yorkshire 42 (includes: Bilsdale Midcable; Carlton; Faceby; Little Busby; Whorlt… – Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952. [online] Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/102344290#zoom=7&lat=6688&lon=13204&layers=BT [Accessed 15 Mar. 2022]..

It was built sometime in the late-19th-century as a farmhouse by the name of Warren House. At the turn of the 20th-century, Alonzo Barker was living there with his family. He was a postman. The last residents were John and Francis Alder who left in 1945 when the house still had no mains water or electricity²‘Kirby Bank Heritage Trail”. Kirby, Great Broughton & Ingleby Greenhow Local History Group. 2016. .

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  Maps.nls.uk. (2022). View map: Yorkshire 42 (includes: Bilsdale Midcable; Carlton; Faceby; Little Busby; Whorlt… – Ordnance Survey Six-inch England and Wales, 1842-1952. [online] Available at: https://maps.nls.uk/view/102344290#zoom=7&lat=6688&lon=13204&layers=BT [Accessed 15 Mar. 2022].
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  ‘Kirby Bank Heritage Trail”. Kirby, Great Broughton & Ingleby Greenhow Local History Group. 2016.