Great Corby, Township, 1848

CORBY, GREAT, a township, in the parish of Wetheral, union of Carlisle, Eskdale ward, E. division of Cumberland, 6¼ miles (E.S.E.) from Carlisle; containing 806 inhabitants. The village is pleasantly situated on the east bank of the Eden; and contiguous to it, on the summit of a precipitous cliff, stands Corby Castle, anciently the seat of the Salkelds, who inherited it from Hubert de Vallibus, Baron of Gilsland, and from whom it passed by purchase to its present possessors, the Howards, a branch of the Norfolk family. The mansion was much modernised and improved in 1813, and the scenery and walks surrounding it abound in natural beauties. The Corby viaduct for conveying the Newcastle and Carlisle railway over Corby, or Drybeck, valley, consists of seven arches spanning 40 feet each; the height from the ground is 70 feet, the whole length 480 feet, and as a specimen of architecture it is little inferior to Wetheral bridge. A school was endowed in 1720 with 25 acres of land, yielding about £20 per annum.