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Skipton
Town in North Yorkshire, England

Skipton

Skipton is a market town and civil parish in the modern ceremonial county of North Yorkshire, England.

Plan a trip to Skipton→From Manchester, Greater Manchester

Historically located in the East Division of Staincliffe Wapentake of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Skipton lies generally south of the Yorkshire Dales and is situated on both the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. The town is located 27 miles (43 km) north-west of Leeds and 38 miles (61 km) west of York. In the 2021 Census, the population was recorded as being 15,042. The town has been listed as one of the best and happiest places to live in the UK.

Get in

Getting to Skipton

From London, the Midlands and beyond, travel to Leeds and change. That's swiftly done as trains from the south usually pull in a few steps from the Skipton trains. Skipton has two trains an hour from Leeds (40 min) and from Bradford Forster Square (40 min); these may also stop at Shipley, Saltaire (for Salts Mill), Bingley and Keighley (for Worth Valley steam railway).

  1. 01
    Skipton bus station is right

    Driving from the south, it's usually best to stay on A1(M) beyond Wetherby then take A59 west.

See

Worth seeing

  1. 01
    Skipton Castle

    The Bailey BD23 1AW, info@skiptoncastle.co.uk.

  2. 02
    Embsay & Bolton Abbey Railway

    Bolton Abbey BD23 6AF, enquiries@embsayboltonabbeyrailway.org.uk.

  3. 03
    Bolton Abbey

    Bolton Abbey BD23 6EX, reception@boltonabbey.com.

  4. 04
    Hesketh Farm Park

    Bolton Abbey BD23 6HA, info@heskethfarmpark.co.uk.

  5. 05
    Barden Tower is the shell
Do

Things to do

Boat trips: Skipton Boat Trips sail from the basin from March to December, for 1-5 hours. Narrowboat hire for day-trips and canal holidays can be arranged via Pennine Cruisers or Canal Trips both at the basin. Walk: lots of choice. The best walking map is OS Outdoor Leisure Map 10 (Yorkshire Dales South, yellow covers, 1:25,000). Skipton teeters on the southern margin of this map, but it covers the nearby dales.

Eat

Where to eat

Bean Loved is a coffee shop at

How locals move

Getting around Skipton the local way

  • Get inOn Sunday May-Sep it connects with a minibus to Buckden and Hawes.

From Wikivoyage: Grassington, CC BY-SA. Not yet checked by us. Last edited 2026-09.

Text adapted from Wikipedia and Wikivoyage, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photograph: Michael D Beckwith (see Commons), Wikimedia Commons.