Archived local history

The Rowley Ellwood Collection is an online gallery of over 500 historic old photos of Skipton, fully indexed and searchable. This site is a tribute to Dr Geoffrey Rowley and Mr Ken Ellwood who gathered together these fascinating prints. These photos are available for viewing on CD or DVD at Skipton Reference Library.
 

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New!!! - Local History Posts

In response to the increased popularity of this website during ‘lockdown’, it was decided to highlight extracts from Dr Rowley’s Notebooks as local history posts on the Library Facebook page. Over time the scope of these posts has been broadened to include any interesting facets of local history even though they are outside the scope of the Notebooks.

To provide an archive for these posts and to make them available on a permanent basis, they are now being uploaded and stored on this website. To access them click on ‘Notebooks’, then ‘Notebook 4’, then ‘Downloads and Transcripts’ where the posts will be listed under ‘Transcripts’. We hope you find this a useful and enjoyable resource.

 

Latest Comments

Most recently added comments. Click to see more details.

Iron works taken over by Moser Maraden and Naylor of Bradford in 1911 - Source - Craven Herald Friday Jan 6th 1911
Scott Wallace 04/11/2023
 
Born 1878 Died 1939. Lived 17 Hallams Yard Skipton. Occupation - Chimney Sweep. Spouse Ruth Thornton. Children - Amy Eucice and Jack...
Scott Wallace 04/11/2023
 
Thomas Chew 1832 - 1898 Midlands railway inspector at Skipton Station. Lived at 10 Aireview Terrace Skipton
Scott Wallace 04/11/2023
 
I was born there in 1962, later my mum lost a baby and ended up in there. Children were not allowed to visit and i was pining for my mum,...
Diane 20/10/2023
 
The photo is taken looking south down High Street. The Red Lion is a listed building...
crispin edwards 18/10/2023
 
Does anyone know the date of the 1950s fire? My wife lived in Sawley street at the time and she thought it was earlier than late 50's. 1955...
Michael Ball 30/09/2023
 
Sadly, none is known to exist.
Admin 12/09/2023
 
Do you have a photo of the maternity home
Jean 12/09/2023
 

 

Latest Updates

Latest gallery admin updates and notes:

Latest notebook transcript files uploaded. These cover up to Notebook 2, page 286.
02/03/2021 Admin
 
Have uploaded the latest notebook transcript files. These now cover up to Notebook 2, page 174.
25/01/2021 Admin
 
We've started to add scans of Dr Rowley's notebooks. These are real treasure troves of information about Skipton's history. The new pages aren't perfect yet - please be patient as we sort out the glitches.
12/05/2018 Admin
 
We've tweaked the "Browse all photos" function so that it now shows the most recently added photos first.
14/03/2018 Admin
 
I've added 21 new photos today! All from Ken Ellwood's collection. I think my favourite is this one of "Berry & Matt" at the Roller Skating Rink. Does anyone know where that was located?
13/03/2018 Admin
 
When scanning the photos, we often find hand-written notes on the reverse, especially pictures from Ken Ellwood's collection. Where we're certain the information is accurate, we'll include it in the photo description. If it's more vague, I will add it as an Admin comment below the picture, as "KE note" for Ken Ellwood, "GR note" for Geoffrey Rowley, etc.
21/01/2018 Admin
 
Added two new photos today: Photo 753 and Photo 754. This is the first new content in many years! Ken Ellwood's family have very kindly shared their father's collection of old Skipton photographs with us. Some of the pictures are already on this site, donated by Dr Rowley's widow when the Rowley Collection was first built. But there are lots of previously unseen images too, and we'll be adding these to the Rowley-Ellwood collection in the coming weeks.
14/01/2018 Admin
 
Fixed bug in pagination at foot of search results page.
09/01/2018 Admin