This is the first chapter of the History of the Township of Ireby written in 1935 by Colonel W. H. Chippindall and published by the Chetham Society, Manchester.
HISTORY OF THE TOWNSHIP OF IREBY
CHAPTER 1
THE TOWNSHIP-ROADS-POPULATION AND CHARITIES
I
REBY township lies in the extreme north-east corner of Lancashire; in shape it has the outline of a club with a long and tapering handle running to a point which lies on the fell at an altitude of 2,000 feet above sea-level. The club-head rests in the lower ground only 250 feet above that datum. The general trend of the township is from north-east to southwest, and it has a greatest length of four and a half miles, while the greatest breadth, across the club-head, is only a mile and a quarter. This lower part of the township contains the principal farms which are wholly occupied in stock-raising and grazing. The soil and subsoil are limestone. Of the agricultural land, 146 acres are arable and 732 are permanent pasture, while the total area of the township is 1,141 statute acres.The township is bounded by Thornton-in-Lonsdale on the north and east, by Burton-in-Lonsdale and Cantsfield on the south, and by Burrow-with-Burrow and Leck on the west.
Three small streams uniting above the hamlet of Ireby form the Ireby Beck which, flowing in a south-westerly direction, joins the Cant Beck on its way to the river Lune.
The main road serving this township is the old turnpike road coming from Settle in Yorkshire and running to Kirkby Lonsdale in direction from south-east to north-west. A secondary road comes from Burton-in-Lonsdale on the south and runs north to the main road, which it follows for a couple of hundred yards westward, and then strikes off northwards to the hamlet of Ireby; but before going into Ireby it throws off a branch, by Todgill, which runs into the township of Leck.
A branch line of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway passes through this township, almost parallel with the main road, coming from Ingleton and running up the valley of the Lune to Lowgill; but there is no railway station.
The principal houses are Overhall; The Old Hall, now replaced by a new house on the old foundations, called Birchroyd; Ireby Hall, originally called Lower Ireby Hall and sometimes known as Fothergill Hall; Stainderber and Anems. Each of these houses will be described later and, as far as possible, the families which inhabited them.
The population, now declining, is shown in the following table:
Date. No. of Persons
1811 100
1851 111
1861 113
1871 103
1881 78
1901 70
This table is an illustration of the disastrous effect, on our rural population, of our present industrial development. In every village in Lonsdale the same story is to be told and the old self-sufficing villages, with their local handicrafts, are things of the past. A hundred years ago every village in Lunesdale had its carpenter and joiner, mason, waller, smith, weaver, dyer, tailor, and occasionally a clockmaker, who supplied all the needs of the inhabitants; but now beyond a joiner and a smith one may look in vain for other craftsmen.
This township is part of the parish of Thornton-in-Lonsdale, the reason for which has never yet appeared; it shares, however, in the Charities for the poor founded by the Rev, Thomas Burrow Pooley of Thornton in 1847, viz. £1 lOs. 8d. a year given in money doles; and in that founded by Edward Yeats of Tunstall in 1892, viz. £1 8s 0d. for poor persons in Leck and Ireby.