Tebay
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Tebay is a village in Cumbria, United Kingdom, within the traditional borders of Westmorland. It is a small village of less than 1,000, lying in the upper Lune Valley, at the head of the Lune Gorge.
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Historically a sheep farming area, the coming of the railway lead to increased prosperity.
The Lancaster and Carlisle Railway, built in 1844, linked those two cities; it was absorbed by the London and North Western Railway in 1879. Tebay became an important junction for, in 1861, the Stainmore Railway, from Tebay-Kirkby Stephen-Barnard Castle and later becoming part of the North Eastern Railway, brought traffic from the east; it was closed in 1962. The A685 runs over much of its trackbed east from Tebay towards Kirkby Stephen. The Little North Western Railway connecting via the Midland Railway to Settle and Leeds, enters the main line at the south end of the Lune Gorge; it was built in the 1850s, and was last used for passengers in the winter 1962/63 as a relief to the main line.
The village has had two railway accidents happen nearby. On 15 February 2004, four people were runover by a maintenance vehicle in the Tebay rail accident. Three years later, the Grayrigg rail crash happened on 23 February 2007 between Oxenholme and Tebay on the West Coast Main Line.
Junction 38 of the M6 lies just west of the village, south of the notoriously exposed Shap Summit. Like its predecessor, the main railway line, it uses the upper reaches of the River Lune to pass through the fells. Tebay services, nearby on the M6, is one of the very few motorway service stations to be run independently, and has often won praise for its food.
Tebay's recently launched community website, Tebay.Org [1], aims to provide a variety of local news and information.
Central to the village is the Railway Club. This provides a concrete link to the past "raison d'etre" of the village. The two pubs in the village also provide a place where the inhabitants can come together. In times past a great proportion of populace was involved with the railway and the local Junction Hotel is now apartments where once were dance halls.
| North: Orton, Eden | ||
| West: Greenholme | Tebay | East: Kirkby Stephen |
| South: Sedbergh |