Formerly the centre of the knitted stocking industry, today Kirkby Stephen is a small Cumbrian market town set in countryside of exceptional natural beauty. It lies at the head of the Eden valley between the Lakes and the Herriot Country of the Yorkshire Dales National Park.
The market square is surrounded by an ancient collar of cobblestones which marks the area once used for 'bull-baiting'. Many of the attractive buildings in the town centre are listed as being of historical importance, especially the restored knitting gallery. Nearby is the old Trupp Stone where tenants paid their tithes in days of old.
There is no doubt that Kirkby Stephen's roots dig deep into the past. Within a radious of some ten miles or so there must be up to forty tumuli of various types proving that this fertile valley was home to people in prehistoric times, in fact the massive burial mound Raiset Pike goes back to the Neolithic period of 2500-2000 years BC and various axe-heads and artifacts found locally date man's presence here into the Stone Age (7000 BC). The first village community here would probably have been Viking.
Kirkby Stephen can boast one of the finest churches in the County...St Stephen's, dating from the 13th century, with monuments as curious as any. Near the font on entering you will see the famous 'Bound Devil', the figure of Satan, chained and horned, a fragment from some grqave stones of the Viking period. Also the effigy of the famous Lord Wharton (1568) a very efficient, though cruel, keeper of the Border in troubled times. Sir Thomas made his name with the sword, enlarged his Hall in Tudor times, founded the Grammar School in 1556, and was the ancestor of Philip Wharton who made his name with the Bible. Their old home was Wharton Hall, now a farm, but once a stately place with a massive gatehouse dated 1559 and a banqueting hall where James I came to dinner. Amongst the ruins of the 14th and 15th century buildings today are a chapel and the great kitchen in a corner of the courtyard. The Wharton's were here in the days of Edward I and rose to importance in Tudor days. When the English Bible came it was a Wharton who left money here for the distribution of 1050 Bibles in a number of English counties, and each year to this day a number of children in the Eden Valley receive a Wharton Bible. It was Philip Wharton who helped to bring William of Orange to England, and his splendid portrait by Van Dyke is well known.
The effigy of another knight in the church is thought to be a Musgrave. There are many old stones in the church including a 10th century cross-shaft.
The church of today is like a small cathedral, a noble building with traces of Saxon and Norman work. It is one of the largest in the county with a stately nave notable for its length and its magnificent 13th cenntury arcades under a modern clerestory.
Kirkby Stephen was one of the centres of 'Pilgrimage of Grace' a rising in 1536 against the religious changes of Henry VIII. The rebels marched on Carlisle but were defeated.
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