Skipton Castle Woods

A short walk and a Canal Trip around Skipton

Above - The castle's gatehouse.

Skipton Castle is one of the best preserved medieval castles in England. Beyond the castle, Castle Wood also contains some interesting industrial relics. My visit began with a look around the castle itself. More information can be found on the Skipton Castle website. The website contains information about the castle's history so rather than repeat this I'll just include some of the pictures from my visit.

1909 Map

Open Street Map

Below - The earliest phase of the castle, now a museum. To the right more modern phases of the castle still serve as private residences.

Below - The main entrance to the castle.

Below - The ruins of the chapel on the right and a carriage shed on the right. The buildings behind would have housed stables and other facilities to service the castle.

Below - The courtyard within the castle.

Below - Inside one of the towers. This shows how the castle was "slighted", the thickness of the walls was reduced as part of the agreement of surrender at the end of the Civil War. Most castles that picked the wrong side in the Civil War were largely ruined.

Below - View of the gatehouse from the castle. To the right the historic market square of Skipton can be seen.

Heading out of the castle, the road outside is called The Bailey. Just north of the entrance to The Bailey car park a narrow gauge industrial railway once ran alongside The Bailey from Skipton Rock Quarry above the village of Embsey to chutes for loading the stone in to barges on the Springs Branch canal at the back of the Castle. Where the railway met the road a stretch of the former railway trackbed survives as a private driveway in to the parts of the castle grounds that are still in residential use. There is no trace of the railway where it ran alongside The Bailey as the road will have been upgraded and widened since. 

Below - Looking along the former trackbed from The Bailey. One of the two surviving bridges over the former railway can be seen.

Near the entrance to the car park a path in to Castle Woods crosses this bridge.

Below - View of the other surviving bridge from the above bridge.

Between here and where the railway, or tramway as it was called, met the canal branch it ran down an incline towards the end of the canal. This is now overgrown within the woods and is not accessible as it is on the part of the castle site still in residential use.

In Skipton Castle Woods the stream Eller Beck can be seen. The stream was adapted to better serve water powered mills around Skipton Castle. Large man made channels such as the Long Dam can be seen in the woods.

Below - One of the mad made weirs between the Long Dam and Eller Beck heading towards the mills of Skipton.

 

Below - An information panel next to the weir, click to enlarge.

Below - One of the artworks along the paths in Castle Woods.

Below - The former High Mill, now a holiday cottage.

Below - Looking north, this is where the path meets the former railway line again, it stood on the other side of the wall and this was where it met the canal branch. A narrow path runs between Eller Beck and the canal. The mechanism of a sluice between the beck and the canal can be seen on the left.

The canal was known as the Springs Branch or Thanet Canal, after Lord Thanet, the owner of Skipton Canal and the quarries the canal served. It was a 1773 built branch from the Leeds & Liverpool Canal and in 1785 the canal company took over the lease of the branch. The movement of stone by the tramway and canal carried on until 1946 when road haulage took over.

Below - The end of the canal can just be seen in the trees. A rock slip in 2016 closed the final stretch of the canal from Mill Bridge to boat traffic and it has quickly become overgrown since. On the far side of the canal, between the canal and the castle were chutes to load the boats from railway wagons.

Below - The rear of the castle seen across the overgrown end of the canal.

Below - An overflow from the Mill Dam to Eller Beck, a man made reservoir that allowed a consistent supply of water to reach the mills. Mill Dam above the waterfall shown below is the Mill Race for High Corn Mill which I'll come to shortly.

Below - The path between the beck and canal.

Below - High Corn Mill.

Below -  A waterwheel fed by the higher Mill Dam discharges in to Eller Beck which passes under the mill.

Below - Mill Bridge passing over the Springs Branch canal.

Below - Information board about the canal branch (click to enlarge).

Below - High Corn Mill, now in various retail uses.

Below - Beyond Mill Bridge the canal is still navigable.

Below - Another sluice feeding the canal from Eller Beck.

Below - Hire boats from Pennine Cruisers who have a boat yard at the junction with the Leeds & Liverpool Canal.

Below - Coach Street bridge looking from the canal junction.

Below - The canal junction and Pennine Cruisers' boat yard.

Below - Wharfs now in use by Skipton Boat Trips seen from Belmont Bridge.

Pennine Cruisers and Skipton Boat Trips offer short boat tours on the canals around Skipton. I went for a 30 minute tour with Pennine Cruisers (website),  this starts by heading south towards the former Ilkley / Grassington railway bridge, now just used by stone trains from Rylstone Quarry.

Below - Maintenance barges next to the former Firth Shed cotton mill.

The 30 minute tour then takes the Springs Branch as far as it can, Mill Bridge, the current limit of navigation.

Below - Mill Bridge on the Springs Branch seen from the tour boat. Ahead the overgrown end of the canal can be seen, disused since stones fell in to the canal around the back of the castle.

 

Kings Cross - St Pancras

A walk around the stations and former goods yards of Kings Cross and St Pancras

The grand facades of St Pancras and Kings Cross stations are well known, not so well known are the vast goods yards that stood behind them. The former goods yards have been redeveloped recently incorporating many of the surviving buildings.

KINGS CROSS

Below - Kings Cross station. Recent restoration has seen later buildings removed from the front of the station back to the original facade, also creating a plaza in front of the station. 

NLS Side By Side Maps

Google Maps

Unfortunately the area is covered where the corner of four maps meet. These are below with the links arranged in order of the area covered.

1875 Map  1875 Map

1916 Map  1877 Map

Originally St Pancras Road met Euston Road and Pentonville Road to the right of the above photo. The landmark "Kings Cross" that gave the station its name would have stood at the junction, the monument was not in fact a cross but a statue of King George IV. It was demolished in 1845, before the station in 1852. St Pancras Road would have cut across where the current plaza is now across the front of the station before curving to run alongside St Pancras station.

ST PANCRAS

Below - St Pancras Station on the left. On the right is the former Great Northern Hotel, the curve of the building would have fronted on to the alignment of St Pancras Road at the time.

 

Below - The grand hotel on the front of St Pancras station. The arch would have given access to the cab road, taxis could have picked up and dropped off next to the platforms. This was once a common practice but in recent years cab roads on most stations have been moved to ranks outside the station front to create more platform space. Here platforms for Eurostar services have been built where the original Midland Railway platforms and cab road used to be. The Midland Mainline is now served by a quite inadequate four platform terminus to the north of the original station roof.

Below - The cab road arch from the station concourse side.

Below - A statue of John Betjeman peers up at the station roof which is now restored close to how it was built. John Betjeman campaigned to save St Pancras following the demolition of the historic Euston station, the fear was that other London termini would similarly be replaced with modern low-maintenance concrete buildings or that many would be lost altogether as dwindling services were consolidated on fewer stations.

Below - Beneath St Pancras was a series of vaults that handled goods traffic, particularly beer from Burton on Trent that supplied the London pubs. When St Pancras was rebuilt to serve as the Eurostar terminal the vaults were opened up to provide concourse space beneath the platforms as well as check in facilities for Eurostar.

SOMERS TOWN GOODS

The map I picked to cover the Midland Railway's goods yards alongside St Pancras is later than the others as the goods facilities alongside the station were added later. A large area of housing, known as Somers Town, was cleared alongside the station to build the new goods shed when the amount of traffic had out grown the Midland Railway's original goods facilities to the north of the passenger terminus.

Below - Nothing remains of Somers Town Goods Yard, the British Library complex seen here and the Francis Crick Institute now occupy the site.

Below - Between St Pancras and Kings Cross stations the Gymnasium building shown on the old maps survives. It is now the German Gymnasium restaurant.

GNR GOODS DEPOT

Below - The buildings between the former Great Northern goods sheds and the Regents Canal. The picture is taken from Esperience Bridge, a footbridge on the abutments of the former railway lines in to the retort houses of the large gas works that was situated between the approaches to St Pancras and Kings Cross stations.

Below - The same buildings from the railway side, note the enamel railway sign saying "Drive Slowly" above the side door of the three storey building.

Below - Map of the site as it is today (click to enlarge)

Below - The main goods shed buildings showing the scale of the goods complex. This building not only covers a larger area than Kings Cross passenger station but was also fronted by a six storey warehouse.

The plaza in front of the goods shed, Granary Square, was previously a basin from the canal, though it is not clear on the old maps how it connected to the canal.

Below - The East Coal Drops, now part of the Coal Drops Yard retail development.

Below - The Coal Drops Yard site, the artistic meeting of the roofs in the middle of the complex is part of the modern redevelopment. Tracks through the middle of the site also continued on a bridge over the canal to coal drops on the other side of the canal. The site of these coal drops has been thoroughly returned to nature as it is now Camley Street Nature Park. 

Below - St Pancras Lock

Below - Victorian water tower next to the approaches to St Pancras station.

Below -  Canal basin alongside the lines in to St Pancras. The old maps show three tracks crossing over the basin in to the coal drops that used to be on that side of the canal. 

Below - The gas holders of the large gas works that stood in this area. It would have been situated here due to the access to supplies of coal. These were a well known landmark on the approach to St Pancras station so some of them were saved as part of the redevelopment with a few repurposed as office buildings and one as a small park. The ironwork was dismantled and refurbished during the redevelopment work and looking at the old map it seems they have been re-located to allow for the expansion at St Pancras station. The old maps show another GNR goods shed at this site.

Below - Remnant of a canopy on the west coal drop building. The sign with the number 15 on it is also a remnant of the later days of the goods yards, reading "North London Freight Depot, 15, West Bank".

Below - The north end of the east coal drops.

Below - The north end of the coal drops.

Below - The north end of the main goods shed.

Below - Remains of an adjoining office building on the north end of the main goods shed (which can be seen on the old maps) with a fireplace and flues.

Below - Canopies of the Potato Market, supplies of potatoes would have largely come to London along the Great Northern Railway from Lincolnshire.

MAIDEN LANE

Below - The earliest of the goods shed buildings on this site. Around this site the Great Northern established a temporary passenger terminus while Kings Cross station was under construction. Kings Cross opened in 1852 but of course the previous year was the Great Exhibition, drawing huge numbers of passengers to London. Maiden Lane served as the London terminus for just over two years, becoming part of the goods facilities once the Kings Cross station was opened. The temporary passenger station was demolished as the goods yards were expanded some time after 1874 but it is possible some of the ironwork was reused around the Potato Market area.

Below - Queen Victoria at the temporary Maiden Lane terminus in 1851 (Public Domain photo from Wikipedia)

Below - The lines in to Kings Cross pass under the Regents Canal in a tunnel, here the roof of the station can be seen across the canal.

Below - Another view of the main goods shed, the tracks can be seen in the paving and although the wagon turntable has been removed it has been marked in the paving where it was.

Below - The offices building, now the Queer Britain museum.

 

YORK ROAD (UNDERGROUND)

1916 Map (bottom left of map)

Across York Road (now York Way) from the Potato Market on the corner of York Road and Bingfield Street was York Road station on the Underground. It opened in 1906 on the Northern, Piccadilly & Brompton Railway, now the Underground's Piccadilly line. The station closed in 1932 but is retained as an emergency exit from the tunnels.

Below - The Leslie Green designed station buildings with its trademark Leeds Fireclay Co terracotta tilework.