Roger Bingham's column: Kirkby Lonsdale's new church tower
The Westmorland Gazette : A well-known rhyme about Kirkby Lonsdale goes: “A poor town, a proud people, An old church, and a new steeple’. As related in Alexander Pearson’s Annals of Kirkby Lonsdale the story goes that in c.1630 a recently-erected south porch round the corner made the west tower look shabby. Accordingly, James Rigge of Hutton Roof left a legacy towards the repair of the steeple, ‘providing the work was completed in three years. Whether it was because of the civil wars in the 1640s, when the vicar was ejected, or because Mr Rigge’s bequest was not enough, nothin...