The village is on a section of the Great North Road that is now the B6265. It was part of the A1 until the section of the A1 west of the village was built. The village is above sea level. The A1 motorway passes through the parish just west of the village. The 2001 Census recorded the population as 355, of whom 294 were more than 16 years old and 168 of these were in employment. There were 155 dwellings of which 105 were detached. The 2011 Census recorded the population as 391.
The oldest parts of the Church of England parish church of All Saints, Kirby-on-the-Moor are Anglo-Saxon and were built in the 10th-century. In and around the church are 12 stones with Celtic carvings. At the base of the southwest corner of the church is a large granite block with a Roman inscription. It is too weathered to be legible, but it appears to be a dedication to either Antoninus Pius or Caracalla, which would make it second- or early third-century. The north aisle of the church was added late in the 12th century, with a Norman two-bay arcade inserted into the Saxon north wall of the nave. The chancel is late 12th- or early 13th-century. Later in the 13th century the north chapel was added. It has a squint to the chancel so that a priest celebrating Mass could follow the priest who was doing the same at the high altar. In the 15th century the chancel was enlarged and its present east window with Perpendicular Gothictracery was inserted. In 1870 the church was restored under the direction of George Gilbert Scott. The present south porch was built to his Gothic Revival design, incorporating various worked stones ranging from the Saxon era to the 13th century. The church is a Grade I listed building. The west tower has a ring of six bells. Richard Seliok of Nottingham cast the tenor bell in about 1520. Samuel II Smith of York cast the fourth bell in 1713 and the fifth bell in 1718. John Warner & Sons of Cripplegate, London cast the treble, second and third bells in 1869.
Chapel
There used to be a Wesleyan chapel in the village.
Economic and social history
In a rebellion of barons against Edward II in 1322, Sir Andreas de Harcla mustered his army near Kirby Hill before the Battle of Boroughbridge. The Pilmoor, Boroughbridge and Knaresborough Railway ran through the parish. It was opened from Junction on the East Coast Main Line to in 1847 and operated by the North Eastern Railway. In 1875 it was extended from Boroughbridge to. In 1964 British Railways closed the line. From 1996 to 2019 residents of Kirby Hill campaigned to stop a developer, Heather Ive Associates, from gaining planning permission for a motorway service area on the A1 about north-west of the village. A campaign group, Kirby Hill RAMS opposed the development. Led by its Chairman, Gareth Owens, RAMS succeeded in opposing the plans at when they came before 's Planning Committee and at three major public inquiries when the developer appealed. On 16 October 2012 the then Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles, formally rejected the plan after the third public inquiry. On 19 November 2019, Harrogate Borough Council's Planning Committee rejected a new MSA scheme at the same site proposed by Applegreen. Kirby Hill has a pub, the . It is on Leeming Lane, the main road through the village.
