The history of Skipton Castle

Skipton Castle was first built around 1090 by Robert de Romille, a Norman lord, as a timber and earthwork motte and bailey castle guarding the route into the Yorkshire Dales. It was rebuilt in stone over the following two centuries, and in 1310 passed to the Clifford family, who held it for the next four hundred years and turned it into one of the most formidable fortresses in the north of England.

The Cliffords were prominent in some of the most violent episodes of medieval and early modern English history, including the Wars of the Roses, and the castle was strengthened repeatedly to withstand siege. That strength was tested for real during the English Civil War, when Skipton Castle held out for the Royalist cause through what became the longest siege of the entire conflict, lasting three years before finally surrendering to Parliamentarian forces in 1645.

Like many Royalist castles, Skipton was ordered to be partially demolished after the war to prevent further military use. It was Lady Anne Clifford, one of the most remarkable women of 17th-century England, a diarist, landowner and determined restorer of her family's castles, who rebuilt and repaired Skipton after the Civil War rather than letting it fall into permanent ruin like so many others. She famously planted a yew tree in the castle's Conduit Court in 1659 to mark the completion of her restoration work, and that same tree still grows there today.

Because of Lady Anne's restoration, Skipton Castle survives today as one of the most complete medieval castles in England, having avoided the total ruin suffered by many of its Civil War contemporaries. It remains privately owned and is open every day of the year, giving visitors an unusually intact sense of what a fully functioning medieval castle interior actually looked like.