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Kilburn memories

Here are memories of Kilburn and the local area. You can start now: Add your own Memory of Kilburn or a Kilburn photo.

Childhood

The Village 1953
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Kilburn was always a magical place for me as a child, lying as it does beneath the hillside where the White Horse is carved. As children we would cycle the seven miles from our home village to spend the day on and around the horse. A visit to 'Mousey Thompson's 'workshop was often included. I also remember earlier days being taken by my father to visit some of his friends in the village, and being enchanted with the little stream running by their garden gate.

High Kilburn

High Kilburn c1955
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I visited High Kilburn with my mother in 1987. She lived there as a young lady. Her name is Laetitia (Thompson) Lewis. Her parents were Lionel and Alice Thompson. We visited the house where she used to live and then went down to Kilburn and through some other villages before returning to Everingham where my uncle lived at the time. His name is Bill Thompson. My grandmother painted a picture from the upstairs window of the house they lived in and that picture hangs on the wall in my mother's house now. 1987 was the last time that I visited England, but I hope to return someday and visit the many beautiful places again, including High Kilburn. Patricia Torres, McMinnville, Tennessee, USA

Low Kilburn

In the process of charting my family tree I discovered that my ancestors had lived in Low Kilburn during the 18th and 19th centuries. Thomas Gamble was a butcher and the family lived in the row of cottages at the other side of the pub car park. Although there were at least four generations of the Gamble family in Kilburn, I was unable to find any gravestones. The family left Kilburn after 1841 and moved to Scarborough where they appeared on the 1851 census.

Memories of North Yorkshire

My Grandma And Grandad Bill And Hannah Chapman

I used to have wonderful memories going to stay with my grandma and grandad who lived next to a farm owned by people called Gardiner I think. I played with the very close farm families' children. And although I was brought up as a Jewish girl as my dad was Jewish, the liveliest memoriesI have are of my grandma's twinkly lights on the Christmas treee. We never had one at home and the couple of Christmases I spent there were the only times Father Christmas remembered me. Grandma would clean the church and I'd have toffees from the post office. There was one shop and each Monday there would be a bus we'd catch taking us to Thirsk to go shopping. My name was Francine Solomons. Truly, Bagby holds very happy memories. There was a grand house with windows bricked up, I used to see ghosts around that house. Grandad was a big Geordie with a great head of hair and everyone knew him, in the farm next door. One... Read more

Place Where I Was Born

Sowerby holds many happy memories for me. I was born there in April 1935 and left for pastures new in 1957. Over the years I have made many visits back to my homeland from Australia. The village has changed very little apart from looking more prosperous than in my childhood, and alas most of the people I once knew have died or moved on.

A Childhood in And Around Thirsk

I spent my childhood in and around Thirsk, although living in the nearby village of Sowerby. Thirsk was where I went to secondary school. It is where we shopped and went to the cinema (there were two of them, The Regent and The Ritz). Teenage years saw me and my friends attending dances at the local town hall. Sometimes we had visiting well known bands such as Kenny Ball. It was a fun time to be living in.

Bagby

I grew up in Bagby, moving there around 1988 and it holds some of the fondest memories for me. I lived in the village for 15 years before moving out of the area but I always make a point of driving through whenever I visit family close by. The village seems to have grown enormously, new houses near to The Greyhound which I believe has been renamed now and my old house bears little resemblance to its former grand incarnation. Bagby will always be a magical place for me and my only hope is that the new buildings don't begin to overpower the old.   

Topcliffe Fair

Annual Gypsy Fair 1962
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I lived on Long Street in Topcliffe 1958-1972 - opposite the old school, which is now a post office, and therefore on the other side of the road from this photo. I was excited by the fair, horses trotting along the road, smells, sights and sounds different from usual, lots of people, including photographers who wanted to take pictures from our upstairs windows and the occasional visitor who would ask to use our loo. Gypsy children attended Topcliffe school in the period before the fair, one family came for several years running, the boys wore orangey-brown boots. Village people and the gypsies didn't seem to mix, although I've been told that a generation earlier, gypsies came to give condolences on the death of my grandfather who had been a butcher in the village, so there must have been some channels  of communication. And for the generation before my grandfather, I believe that the fair lasted three days or more, including fairground rides???  In 1969 or early 1970, I spotted a... Read more

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