KIRKBY-THORE, a parish in EAST ward, county
of WESTMORLAND, comprising the chapelries of Milburn
with Milburn-Grange, and Temple-Sowerby, and
the township of Kirkby-Thore, and containing 1051 inhabitants,
of which number, 377 are in the township
of Kirkby-Thore, 5 miles (N. W. by N.) from Appleby.
The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry and diocese
of Carlisle, rated in the king's books at £37. 17. 11.,
and in the patronage of the Earl of Thanet. The church
Ls dedicated to St. Michael. There is a place of woryhip
for Wesleyan Methodists; also a school with a
trifling endowment bequeathed by Mr. John Horn, in
1S23. This place received its adjunct designation from
Thor, the chief of the Saxon idols, to whose honour a
temple was raised here. The rivers Eden and Troutbeck
run through the parish, and unite their streams at the
yillage, a great part of which, with the hall, was built
out of the ruins of Whelp castle, an ancient fortress
formerly occupying an adjacent eminence, where, in
1687, were discovered, on turning up its site for cultivation,
a four-fold wall, arched vaults, leaden pipes, an
altar inscribed " FORTVNAE SERVATRICI," with many
other antiquities, the supposed relics of a Roman station
called Brovonaca, as fixed by Horsley An ancient
well, several urns, curious earthen vessels, and other
relics, are recorded as having been discovered in 1684,
near the bridge; and, about 1770, the horn of a moose
deer was dug up near the confluence of the two rivers.
Not far from the village is a spring slightly sulphureous,
termed Pots Well, which rises from an alabaster
rock lying at a considerable depth below the surface.