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.

 

Northwich Canal Walk & Lion Salt Works

Starting Point - Lostock Gralam Station. Finishing Point - Northwich Station. Distance - 7.2 Miles

Below - The station name board at Lostock Gralam which even confirms my plans for the day.

The Lion Salt Works operated between 1894 and 1986, as the last of once countless open pan salt works in the area it was saved as a museum. More detail about the history of the works can be found on the Lion Salt Works Trust website.

The museum website recommends those visiting by train to arrive at Lostock Gralam station and walk along the Trent and Mersey Canal to reach the museum. Though it is further than Northwich station the walk is a better one along the canal towpath rather than busy roads.

Rail Map Online (Canal Map)

Google Maps

1934 Map (right hand side of map)

It's a short walk from the station to the former Wincham Wharf (now The Lambs public house) where Manchester Road crosses the canal.

Below - Heading north from the former Wincham Wharf the first industrial site is the former Woodside, Sunbeam and Wincham Hall salt works, now the Wincham Business Park in various industrial uses.

1910 Map

The Lion Salt Works is accessible through a gate off the canal towpath.

Below - A map of the museum site (click to enlarge)

Below - Some of the historic buildings at the salt works site, on the left one of the pan houses and the engine house and chimney on the right.

Below - The furnaces under one of the salt pans.

Below - One of the pan houses. The workers would scoop the salt from the brine in moulds.

Below a disused pan house showing how the walls under the pan were patched up as they distorted under the weight of the pan and how the pans were constantly patched up due to corrosion.

Below - The hot house where the blocks of salt were dried over the flues from the furnaces.

Below - The crushing mill in which blocks of salt were crushed in to ground salt.

The cutting room where blocks of salt were cut. Just the remnants of a few of the cutting machines survive and most of the space is now taken up with displays.

Below - Outside the main works buildings is the engine house. This is a steam powered capstan made by Liverpool crane maker Wilson. The capstan was used to shunt railway wagons.

Below - The other machinery in the engine house.

Below - A restored salt wagon at the site of the railway sidings.

Below - The smithy where equipment was made and repaired for the works including the patches for the salt pans.

Below - The boiler that would have provided the steam that worked the machinery in the engine house and the brine pump across the entrance road.

Below - The engine house and brine pump with the "Nodding Donkey" brine pump that was originally powered by a steam engine.

Below - The works offices.

Below - The window in the office building where the workers would have received their wages.

Below - The former Red Lion Hotel, the works began in the hotel's yard and went on to take over the former hotel. This was where the works got its name.

Below - Remnants of another salt pan.

Below - The brine tank outside the pan buildings.

Below - Returning to the canal where the works buildings front on to the canal.

Below - The brine tank baring the lettering of an earlier version of the museum. It is now council run and opens more regularly.

Below - A narrow boat on the Trent and Mersey Canal.

Below - The bridge carrying Marbury Lane over the canal.

1910 Map

Below - Anderton Marina. The basin on the south side of the canal is on the site of a basin that was connected to another salt works by a railway.

Below - A narrow boat off licence "Barge Inn Booze" moored at Anderton

1910 Map

Below - Another top industrial heritage attraction on this walk is the Anderton Boat Lift built to connect the Trent & Mersey Canal at the top to the Weaver Navigation at the bottom. A useful connection in this industrialised area. Previously chutes were used to transfer salt from boats on the canal to boats on the navigation.

The boat lift has a visitor centre with displays about the lift and local industries. Boat trips are usually available though they weren't at the time of this visit due to winter maintenance work. The lift was built in 1875 so this year celebrates its 150th anniversary. It has been rebuilt extensively since with hydraulic pumps beneath being replaced by electric motors at the top. Anderton Boat Lift Visitor Centre website

Below - The Tata Chemicals works plant opposite the Anderton Boat Lift on the south bank of the Weaver Navigation. A huge chemical industry has grown up from the local salt mining. Salt is still extensively mined by pumping water into the mines and pumping the brine out, a development of the methods of the earlier works as seen at the Lion works.

I headed east alongside the Weaver Navigation. A short distance from the boat lift is a junction with Willow Brook where the navigable River Weaver heads south, a footbridge across Willow Brook leads to Carey Park which was built on former clay pits. A path follows the river but is separated from the riverside by trees. The path emerges in the Barron Quays retail development, built on recently stabilised land that previously suffered from subsidence due to the local salt mining.

I walked to the Weaver Hall Museum on London Road. This is a former workhouse building that has displays about the local industrial history. The Workhouse opened in 1839, workhouses were abandoned in 1930 and the building became a local authority building. Between 1948 and 1968 it served as an old people's home. Wards at the back of the building were demolished and replaced with a purpose built home but the buildings at the front were retained. Between 1981 and 2010 the remaining workhouse building became the Salt Museum, transferring from earlier museums adjoining the local library that date back to 1887. These days Lion Salt Works now better covers that side of local history amongst the local authority run museums allowing Weaver Hall to concentrate it's displays more on its former purpose as a workhouse as well as other aspects of local history, though naturally salt mining is still a major part of the displays. More information can be found on the museum’s website.

Below - A monument to local industrial history in the middle of Northwich. 

1910 Map

Below - The former workhouse buildings of the Weaver Hall Museum.

Below - This small round building north of the Weaver Hall Museum off Weir Street contains a 1913 built pumping station. Earlier pumping stations would have been much larger as they would have had steam powered engines but this one used a Crossley Gas Engine. The pumping station has been replaced with the somewhat less attractive building alongside but tours are occasionally offered of the old building.

Below - Information board at the pumping station (click to enlarge).

Below - The viaduct carrying the railway over the River Weaver.

I walked to Northwich station on a path largely following the foot of the long viaduct that carries the railway over the river and much of the town.

1934 Map

Below - Northwich Station.

Below - Looking along the platforms, on the right the disused platform face can be seen on the line from Sandbach via Middlewich. The line survives but has not had a passenger service since the 1960s aside from occasional diverted trains.

Below - The service from Manchester to Chester (via Stockport) that still operates through Northwich, my train to head home.