Kirkby Stephen

It is sometimes said that Faraday Road (parallel with High Street and Market Street) is named in honour of the scientist, Michael Faraday (1791–1867), but in fact it remembers his uncle, Richard Faraday, who was a respected local tradesman. Richard's younger brother James was for some time the blacksmith in Outhgill, but his third child, Michael, was born soon after they had moved to London. The Faraday brothers moved from Clapham in the West Riding to the Kirkby Stephen area because the family were all members of the Sandemanian sect, and at that time there was locally one of the few Sandemanian communities with a chapel, which stood in the courtyard behind what are now the Costa Coffee premises.

Kirkby Stephen is in the parliamentary constituency of Penrith and the Border. Neil Hudson was elected its Conservative Member of Parliament at the 2019 General Election, replacing Rory Stewart.

Before Brexit, the town was in the North West England European Parliamentary Constituency.

An electoral ward in the same name exists. This stretches south to Aisgill, with a total population at the 2011 Census of 2,580.[4]

The view of Wild Boar Fell

• Stenkrith Park is to the south of the town, on the B6259 road to Nateby. The river scenery marks a change from limestone at the head of the Eden Valley in Mallerstang to the red sandstone characteristic further along the Eden Valley. The main rock, from which most houses in Kirkby Stephen are built, is brockram, composed of fragments of limestone in a cement of red sandstone. The river at Stenkrith has carved this rock into many fantastic shapes, collectively known as the Devil's Grinding Mill or Devil's Hole. This natural scenery has been supplemented, in recent years, by three human additions.
• The ‘Poetry Path' has 12 stones, which were carved by the artist Pip Hall and bear poems by Meg Peacock that depict a year in the life of a hill farmer.[5]
• Eden Benchmarks: Beside the river there is a sculpture by Laura White, entitled ‘Passage', one of the ten "Eden Benchmarks", a series of sculptures that have been placed at intervals along the River Eden from its source in Mallerstang to the Solway Firth.
• The Millennium Bridge was opened in 2002 and provides pedestrian access from the park to a walk along the old south Durham railway track.

Among many other scenic features in the area are: Nine Standards Rigg to the north-east Pendragon Castle and Wild Boar Fell, to the south.

Unlike neighbouring Brough, Kirkby shows no evidence of Roman settlement, but there are many traces of even more ancient eras in the area, including the remains of a large Iron Age earthwork or hill fort known as Croglam Castle, on the south-eastern edge of the town.

Kirkby Stephen West station, on the Settle–Carlisle line, is located over 1 mile (2 km) south-west of the town. The line keeps to high ground, avoiding any descent into the valleys where possible.

A second, older railway station is Kirkby Stephen East station at the southern edge of the town. Originally a large junction of the South Durham & Lancashire Union Railway and the Eden Valley Railway, the station was reopened by the Stainmore Railway Company in August 2011 as a heritage centre and operational railway representing the 1950s. It is open to visitors every weekend.

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  Frank's Bridge
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  Kirkby Stephen from the path to Hartley
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  River Eden through Kirkby Stephen.

• Listed buildings in Kirkby Stephen
• List of English and Welsh endowed schools (19th century)

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Kirkby Stephen.

• Cumbria County History Trust: Kirkby Stephen (nb: provisional research only - see Talk page)
• The Northern Viaducts - Upper Eden Valley