Kirkdale, North Yorkshire
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Kirkdale ("church valley") is a valley in
North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in Northern England.The Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority areas of City of York, York and North Yorkshire (district), North Yorkshire are in Yorkshire and t ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, which along with Sleightholmedale makes up the larger Bransdale and carries the Hodge Beck from its moorland source near Cockayne to the River Dove and onto the River Rye in the Vale of Pickering.
Corallian Limestone The Corallian Group or Corallian Limestone is a geologic group in England. It is predominantly a coralliferous sedimentary rock, laid down in the Oxfordian stage of the Jurassic. It is a hard variety of " coral rag". Building stones from this g ...
which outcrops on the hills surrounding the Vale of Pickering runs across the region, and this appears as an
aquifer An aquifer is an underground layer of water-bearing material, consisting of permeability (Earth sciences), permeable or fractured rock, or of unconsolidated materials (gravel, sand, or silt). Aquifers vary greatly in their characteristics. The s ...
in Kirkdale swallowing most of the water from Hodge Beck, which reappears further downstream. During summer months the river bed often runs dry as most of the water takes a subterranean passage. Kirkdale is noted for a bone cave, an ancient animal den, into which scavengers such as hyenas dragged the remains of many other animals. Numerous bones can still be found in the cave today.


History

Although there is no village in the dale, Kirkdale was the centre of a large
ancient parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...
. The
Saxon The Saxons, sometimes called the Old Saxons or Continental Saxons, were a Germanic people of early medieval "Old" Saxony () which became a Carolingian " stem duchy" in 804, in what is now northern Germany. Many of their neighbours were, like th ...
parish church of St Gregory's Minster stands by the river. It was built in 1055 on the site of an earlier church, and has an 11th-century
sundial A sundial is a horology, horological device that tells the time of day (referred to as civil time in modern usage) when direct sunlight shines by the position of the Sun, apparent position of the Sun in the sky. In the narrowest sense of the ...
bearing an
Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...
inscription. The church gave its name to the dale, first recorded in the
Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
of 1086, and derived from the Old Norse ''kirkja dalr'' (meaning "church valley"). The parish was composed of the
township A township is a form of human settlement or administrative subdivision. Its exact definition varies among countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, this tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Canad ...
s of
Beadlam Beadlam is a village and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 250, reducing to 229 at the Census 2011. It is situated about west of Pickering, near the southern boundary of the North Yo ...
, Bransdale, Westside,
Muscoates Muscoates is a hamlet and former civil parish, now in the parish of Nunnington, in North Yorkshire, England. It lies on the River Riccal, to the south of the town of Kirkbymoorside. Heritage Muscoates is first mentioned in a 12th-century docu ...
, Nawton, North Holme, Skiplam, Welburn (which included the site of the parish church) and Wombleton. North Holme was transferred to the parish of Great Edstone in the 19th century. All these townships became separate civil parishes in 1866.Vision of Britain website
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See also

* Kirkdale Cave


References


External links


Kirkdale
Valleys of the North York Moors {{NorthYorkshire-geo-stub