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Kirkby Overblow
Kirkby Overblow photos
Displaying the first of 5 old photos of Kirkby Overblow. View all Kirkby Overblow photos
Kirkby Overblow maps
Historic maps of Kirkby Overblow and the local area, hand-drawn by Ordnance Survey and Samuel Lewis. View all Kirkby Overblow maps
Kirkby Overblow area books
Displaying 1 of 28 books about Kirkby Overblow and the local area. View all books for this area
You can read extracts and browse photos from these books.
Memories of Kirkby Overblow
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North Yorkshire memories
The Norfolk Family
I am John Howard Norfolk and although I have never lived in Yorkshire I know that my Norfolk family were farmers, millers and tanners in Harewood and nearby Wharfedale villages for many hundreds of years until the late 1800's. I have found records of my Norfolk family living in the parish going back to the early 1600's.
I have visited the church in Harewood and found several family graves - how alarming it is to see a tombstone with your own name, John Norfolk, on it !
Some of the family lived in Harewood Mill and others in the nearby hamlet of Dunkeswick. Looking at the area in modern times at so much farmland and parkland it is hard to believe that in centuries past there were so many inhabitants and worshippers at the church.
I believe that the last of my family to be raised in the parish was my great-grandfather James Henry Norfolk who moved to Leeds and then London. If... Read more
Childhood Memories
I was born in Harewood in 1971 and lived 14 amazingly happy childhood years there!!
My father was born there in 1947 and he has amazing tales of his childhood too!!
My memories were of taking a picnic and heading out on adventures to "the rockies" with tunnels and caves; now I understand they were built by the landscape artist Capability Brown. We would venture deep into the woods to "the roman pool" and catch tadpoles and newts, a few accidents with us falling in!! Then before dusk it would be a trip to the castle to climb up the steep, spiral staircase to the top of the world!!! I think it was falcons that used to nest up there, but it was a breathtaking view!!
These memories will never leave me!!!!
My Grandmother
I remember talk about my grandma May who worked at Harewood House about 1918-19, she became pregnant with my father who was born in 1920. She was banished from the House, forbidden ever to reveal the father's name. i often wonder who my grandfather was!
Park Mount
House on the right looks similar, as it did when I used to live there in the mid 70's - just missing the white wash look.
Balcony House
The taller light coloured house on the left, near the centre of the picture, is called Balcony House. The balcony was removed, I believe, in World War 11. The house was built in the mid 19th C by the local apothecary. I lived there c 1977-1982. The shop belonged to a butcher. The four small cottages are older than Balcony House, and behind them lies a farm belonging to the Spinks family.
Harrogate Station Square
Here is Station Square appearing as its architects intended, an open airy town centre piece. The gardens in the foreground are the Coronation Gardens of c.1953, which complimented the Victorian square admirably. Just as this picture was being taken, the lovely old and deliberately 'low roofed' railway station was being totally ruined by the new overscale Station Tower and new station foyer. Looks like Checks' Cafe in the background is boarded up and it wouldn't be too many years hence that the Market Hall and the Coronation Gardens (and their useful public conveniences) would be swept away in the name of progress, with the gross criminal loss a bit later of the re-buildable Victorian Lowther Arcade and the West Yorkshire Road Car Co bus station, where we all met our dates on a Saturday night under the clock. Harrogate needs to move with the times but didn't deserve this onslaught. These are some of the fond memories of a 1950-born Harrogate child coupled with a heavy heart!
George James McConney
Ironically this picture represents two important monuments relating to my maternal uncle. At St. Peter's Church on the right is where he sang as a choir boy. The war memorial on the left immortalizes his death in 1943 at age 20. His name appears on the side facing the church. He served in 1st Airborne, Division Signals, Royal Corps of Signals and gave his life in Tunisia. He grew up nearby on Harlow Moor Drive. I bought this picture on my visit to Harrogate in 2005 and it hangs in my Mum's bedroom.
