Notebooks
As well as the collection of photographs, Dr Rowley kept detailed handwritten notes of his research into Skipton's history. There are four volumes of these notes, each filled with fascinating information about the town's buildings, institutions and people.
The notebooks are held in Skipton Library, where you are welcome to view them. Thanks to the efforts of the Library's local history volunteer team, you can also read the notebooks here online, or download them as pdf files.
The pages have been scanned at high resolution, making it possible to zoom in and examine these unique records more closely than ever before. Where previously it was sometimes tricky to decipher certain passages, it's now far easier to follow Dr Rowley's narrative. To make the notebooks even more accessible, the Library volunteers have begun the lengthy process of transcribing them. As the transcripts become available, we will add them to the notebook pages here, as well as downloadable pdf versions.
Notes on the Transcriptions
Every effort has been made to ensure the complete pdf versions of Rowley’s notebooks are as faithful as possible to the original.
Punctuation, superscript text, abbreviations, errors and spelling are reproduced as they appear in his notes.
His deleted text is indicated by angled brackets, < deleted text> ; inserted text is indicated by slash marks, \ inserted text / .
Where any notes are illegible this is indicated by {illegible}.
Explanatory Footnotes have been added by the transcriber where considered necessary.
The sequence of page entries is also reproduced – Rowley tended to write rough notes on even-numbered (left-hand) pages, which relate to the fuller notes written on the opposing odd-numbered (right-hand) pages. Hence the flow of text in the transcriptions may at times appear disjointed.