Skipton - Blogabond

We went around a mediaeval castle today. The oldest part of it is nearly 1000 years old. It was very wet and cold and Rachel and I were the only ones in the whole place. It is quite a small castle in many ways, although there were plenty of passageways and rooms. During the War of Roses, the castle was besieged for 3 years and was never overtaken. The walls are incredibly thick.

We walked through the gatehouse into the outer court which is just a grassed area now.

Skipton Castle entrance

Then we climbed up some steps, past the grooves of an old portucullis and into the inner court. The court was named Conduit Court and had half a dozen doorways leading from it. They were all different shapes and sizes and all very black. The stone was a mixture of green and grey and there was a steady trickle of rain making everything look very bleak and old. In the centre was a magnificent yew tree, planted by one of the ladies in the 1600's.

We climbed some more steps and entered the great hall. The fireplace was massive. You could easily fit an entire deer on a spit in it. Then we went through into the old kitchen and the fireplace was even larger. There's very little furniture of any kind left, but you can see things like the old ovens set into the wall on either side of one of the fireplaces and a shute for kitchen waste disappearing into the moat far below. Off the kitchen was the only privy we saw with a very cold hole going sraight down to the moat.

Inside new kitchen, Skipton Castle

Most of the rooms seemed to be for defence. There seemed to be surprisingly little room for people to live in. All the inner staircases were narrow and spiral. The stone steps had great dents in the middle...I guess from thousands of feet going up and down them. There was one straight inner staircase...and that led to the dungeon. It was incredibly dark and damp inside and people were sometimes shackled to the wall. No one ever escaped from it, although there was no torture and the longest stay was about 13 weeks.

There were a variety of narrow shafts for shooting arrows out of as well as a number of windows set into the wall. Most of these seemed to have been put in after the war, when the danger was over. The walls had been cut back in places so the windows were set back in the wall about 2 metres.

The town of Skipton itself was fascinating. It's an old market town and all the shops are really old. Nothing looks new. You walk along the cobbled street past dark grey stone stores and there are small alleyways every now and then with a sign over them saying 'something yard' and there is an open space beyond. I guess for horses.

I'm glad I'm not driving. Everyone seems to go really fast and the streets are very narrow. The intersections are confusing as well. It seems that the mediaeval town planners didn't make sure that all the streets met at neat 90 degree angles. People seem to think nothing of parking on the side of the road even if there is only half a metre from the edge of their parked car and the centre line! The traffic lights are different too. A flashing orange light means 'proceed with caution'. And the lights go from red to orange to green to give you a warning that it is changing.

written by

Abby Benton on January 18, 2008 from Skipton, United Kingdom

from the travel blog: UK

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I think you should have taken more photos. I would have been interested to see that yew tree.

written by Daniel Benton on January 19, 2008

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