To accommodate the expansion in trade the Middle Row was built in the 16th century – although
the buildings we see today largely date from the 18th century.
One interesting building is the old Town Hall. This was originally built as a Court, where
the local magistrate presided. Underneath there were cells for holding criminals.
There were also stocks here.
But this wasn’t their original position.
They initially stood next to the Market Cross that was in the middle of High Street– an
open sided canopied structure that was built in the early to mid 17th century.
On the roof was the market bell that was rung to open and close the market proceedings.
Underneath local farmers could sell butter and vegetables. To see what one would have looked like
travel to Otley and see the Butter Cross that stands in the Market Square.
In the streets sheep and cattle were sold. This was done farmer to farmer – one stating
how much he wanted and the other stating how much he was willing to pay. This went on until
a price was agreed.
It must have been a tremendous sight seeing the cattle being driven into the High Street from
miles around – the noise – the smell!
Stray animals were rounded up by the beadle and put in the pinfold, where on payment of
a fine, you could retrieve your animal.
But all this trade was disrupted with the outbreak of Civil War between 1642 and 1645.
The Cliffords were Royalists, those who supported Charles 1st against the Parliamentarians under
Cromwell. Skipton Castle was put under the charge of Sir John Mallory when it was first
besieged in December 1642. The castle held out and was the last Royalist castle in Yorkshire
to surrender in December 1645 – effectively after the war had ended with the
Battle of Naseby in 1644.
As part of its surrender the castle was ‘slighted’: its defensive walls were removed or reduced.
Lady Anne Clifford restored the castle as a home and laid out the gardens. A new entrance
to the castle was built, and former garrison accommodation turned into living quarters.
Although prior to the Civil War, with the building of the eastern wing in 1536 its role
as a stronghold was thought to have been over.
Until then Holy Trinity was the only church serving Skipton parishioners. This was to
change when the Quakers, founded in 1652 by George Fox, opened a Meeting House in 1693.
They believe in a plain, peace loving life.
To reflect this the room is very simple.
It's unusual for a place of worship in that the Friends meet in the “round” and their
meetings for worship are notable for long periods of silence.
A dividing screen was installed in the 1760s
so that men and women could conduct business separately with
it being opened up for worship.
The Meeting House was also used as a Quaker School between 1703 and 1756 – look in the
Minister’s gallery for names scratched in by boys attending here!
A new entrance was built in 1993, as part of the Friends’ tercentenary celebrations
and at the other end of the building is a library. Although when established there was
resistance to the Quaker’s – they still meet here.
When the Poor Rate was introduced in 1601 it now made the township itself responsible
for those who were unemployed, elderly or sick – rather than the Cliffords – with
Churchwardens, Overseers of the Poor and the Surveyor of the Highways being appointed annually
– all unpaid posts!
Taxes were also raised to pay for improvements.
This made the villagers keen to keep those not born in the Parish out. You were given
a settlement document such as this, for William Graham and his wife and son of Halton, to
prove in times of hardship, where you were originally born. If you became a charge to
the town, in other words, you became ill or unemployed, you would be transported back to the
parish of your origin – such as in the case of John Ramsbottom, his wife and three children,
who were sent back to Bowling in Bradford!
John, or was it Thomas Proctor? Blacksmiths from Steeton, made an unknown single woman
pregnant and had to pay £30 in case the child became a charge to the town. If the child
did, the Churchwardens may have apprenticed you, as was John Green to William Moorhouse.
The document doesn’t say what William did, or how old John was at the time, but he was
apprenticed until he was 24!
Improvements were slowly being made in the town. A stone bridge, replaced the ford by
the Mill in 1628 – look carefully underneath to see the original.
Properties were now being built in stone rather than wood
– like this cottage dated 1629 that stands on the original
cobbled Raikes Road.
The land was enclosed – the building of walls, fences and hedges to create fields
- the landscape in and around Skipton that gives it so much character today.
Getting around was difficult then, as the tracks were very rutted or deep in mud. The
first road improvements came after 1700, when the Turnpike Acts were passed – which allowed
for roads to be paved by Turnpike Trusts, rather than the Parish it ran through.
Draughton road was built in 1803 that stopped the need for using the old Roman Road. But tolls had
to be paid by those using it for its upkeep - and they were situated on all roads out
of Skipton. You can see the tollhouse at the bottom of Short Bank Road. Tolls weren’t
abolished until 1874.
Most people worked from their own homes.
The finished cloth would have been sold at Leeds market that took place at 7:00am
every Tuesday and Saturday.
They would either have to walk the 20 miles with their cloth on their shoulder
or used a mule to transport it – quite a struggle in the early hours of the morning!
A number of pubs were used for stabling horses for the stagecoaches that now started to pass
through Skipton to Ilkley, Leeds or York.
At the Devonshire Hotel – known as The New Inn
when built around 1790 – you can still see the stables at the side – although now
converted into cottages.
And the yard behind The Royal Oak,
after the Gargrave Road was turnpiked in 1824.
A far greater change was the decision to dig a canal from Leeds to Liverpool that was to
pass through Skipton. Work began at Leeds and Skipton simultaneously in 1771 and the
stretch opened in 1777. In creating the canal basin, Winterwell Hall, an imposing Tudor building
was demolished – it stood by Belmont Bridge.
The stretch to Gargrave was started in 1774,
but it took until 1816 for the whole 127 miles from Leeds to Liverpool to be fully navigable.
It’s effect was immediate – coal that came into town by barge dropped to half its
price. Barges returned to Leeds and further a-field full of stone.
Until then, stone was quarried to meet the needs for local housing, and there were numerous
quarries around the town.
Haw Bank was then opened up for quarrying limestone and the
Springs Canal was dug in 1774 and extended in 1794 to bring it nearer to the Quarry.
Stone was brought down a tramway and dropped down 100ft long chutes into waiting barges.
This severely damaged the barges – and the noise could be heard for miles around!
In 1836 the tramway was built at a lower level, so that the chutes needed to be only 20ft
long – and it is one of those that you can still see here today.
Skipton Rock Quarry is currently being used by Tarmac for the production of asphalt used
to build and repair roads, and no quarrying currently takes place.
Instead much of the crushed stone comes by lorry from Swinden Quarry near Linton. This stone comes in all
sorts of grades, depending on its use. The stone chips are dropped into a hopper and
then heated before being mixed with hot tar and then dropped into a waiting lorry.
This load is going to a company in Wakefield who train people on how to lay and repair roads.
The lowering in the cost of coal spurred the industrial revolution in the West Riding.
However, the very short 40-50 year leases offered by the Lords of Skipton curtailed
investment in the town.
So well into the 1800s woollen cloth was produced at home.
It was these hard working weavers of independent means that would have gone to hear Charles
Wesley preach one morning by Mill Bridge in 1764 and were influenced enough to establish
chapels in the town. The first Wesleyan Chapel, just yards away from where he preached, was
built in 1791 and rebuilt in 1821.
A Congregationalist chapel was built on Newmarket Street in 1779 – although the one you see
today is the rebuilt chapel of 1914 and now known as St Andrew’s after a number of chapels
united here in 1975. The adjacent hall is the former Sunday School built in 1890.