Old Skipton

Skipton in Yorkshire is best known as a market town and for its castle and the Skipton Show. The town is also on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal which opened in 1816 but had been benefitting from 1773 when the lock-free part from Bingley to Skipton was completed. The canal's principal traffic was coal but the canal also enabled the town to have a number of cotton mills. This mix of industry and agriculture meant that the town had everything from fine hotels to slum housing, the latter being something not associated with the Skipton of today. Paul Chrystal's book is as much about the people and the social history of Skipton as it is about its streets and its buildings.