Not a lot happened

Jan’s blackberry & apple jam has now been placed in the back of the pantry.  There’s still a few jars of Damson jam from 2013 so it might be some time before I get the the 2014 jam.

Jan has picked up on an idea of Sue’s (nb No Problem) and writes the picking location on the labels.  In a recent post Sue also mentioned she adds some ginger to the fruit to give it that little extra “bite”.  I’ve found that provided you pick at least 30% of the berries down low the dog wee has a similar effect!   Just joking folks…… you actually can’t taste the wee!

A couple of days ago Jan pointed out the saloon switch for the TV aerial (actually the 12V powered amplifier) wasn’t illuminating.  This wasn’t an immediate issue because almost everything in the boat has built in redundancy.  There’s a second switch in the bedroom.  The weather has been drizzly for much of the day so I decided to the replace the switch.  It Is part of a three gang wall plate so the first task was to take the cover plate off the switch frame and then remove the frame from the wall to access the individual switches.  This enabled me to remove the affected switch.  I have some spares for this type of eventuality and used one to replace the existing switch.  The LED backlighting was reconnected and the switch reassembled.  The switch mechanism is “momentary” (like a door bell switch)( rather than conventional on/off.  Pressing a switch sends a pulse to the node which activates the consumer.  In this case the 12V TV and amplifier.  It also lights up the LED until the switch is pressed for a second time.

To my surprise the backlight LED was red.  Then I remembered I’d been working on (playing around) with some of the switches back in Australia when Waiouru was just an idea. I had fitted a couple of them with red LEDs.  So this must be one of my originals.

All the other LEDs are blue.  I then disassembled the defective switch and repaired the mechanism before reassembling it and returning  it to storage. 

The last job for the day was to apply a second coat of gloss varnish to the rear doors, tiller handle and the rear cabin door step.

I (almost) feel guilty about doing so little today.  It was too wet to make another attempt on the bow hatch painting so that will have to wait for another day.  Tomorrow will probably be an early start as we want to reach Leeds.

The good, bad and ugly

Despite a rather grey sky after lunch there was no rain and we managed to get a number of maintenance jobs done on the boat.  Both sides to the cabin have now been washed and polished.  The light ‘powdery” graphite grey look has been replaces with the original dark grey shine.  It’s surprising to see how much paint comes off when polishing.  The polishing cloths were hand washed and hung up to dry.

The Good.  Jan scrubbed the carpet and cleaned the galley whilst I cleaned the inside of the cratch and pram covers.  Both of us used the container of “The Pink Stuff” cleaner which Jan purchased for a pound in Skipton.  It’s bloody brilliant!  Cleaned all the marks off the pram and cratch covers whilst the inside of the oven positively sparkles. Jan had previously tried a number of cleaners and steel pads but nothing cleaned the oven as well as this stuff.

She’s now kicking herself for not buying more containers.

I then masked up and badly painted the bow hatch cover.  My painting technique doesn’t seem to be improving.  Consequently the hatch now looks rather ugly.  Looks like I’ll have to rub it down and have a second attempt.

The final task was to mask up the oak lining on the stern doors and revarnish both doors plus the tiller handle. Some of the interior varnish also requires another coat.

We went off to The Railway for a roast lunch only to leave disappointed on discovering they didn’t provide a Sunday roast.  Perhaps we were doubly disappointed as a local had informed Jan yesterday how lovely the pub Sunday roasts were!  Sandwiches for lunch.

“Icy Icy” parked his trailer near the towpath and I suggested to Jan we treat ourselves to a 99.  Single cone because our stomachs are not as big these days.  Mr Snow Freeze Then mentioned he and his wife had emigrated to NZ some years ago only to return when his wife got homesick.  He told me returning was the worst decision they had ever made!  I suspect his wife doesn’t feel the same.

We were just getting into recliner mode when a comment on yesterday’s blog post arrived.  Mick & Pip (nb LillyAnne) had cruised up from Leeds during the day and had moored a few boats behind us.  I wandered back to have a chat and managed to pick Mick’s brain about Leeds and York.  Mick mentioned he was a casual blog reader and they had their own blog.  The link to their blog is now on our Blog Roll.  Mick mentioned they were now live-aboards and continuous cruisers.  Hopefully our paths will cross again at some future date.

We will stay here tomorrow waiting out the rain and the public holiday before cruising down to Leeds on Tuesday.

On to Rodley

Well the last of the vanilla slice has gone… straight to my waistline.  You “muffin top”!

After sitting out the rain In Shipley we used the break in the weather and moved to the 7 Day moorings at Rodley.  Not being in a hurry, we slowly prepared Waiouru for cruising (tiller arm on, stow pram cover, set up gps, keys, cameras, swabs, etc)  Just as I was about to cast of the mooring lines a bloody great CRT working boat came around the bend.  The bow was almost square and whilst it wasn’t going fast it was pushing a large amount of water in front. 

Whilst we resigned ourselves to a very slow trip there was an upside.  The CRT boat had an accompanying vehicle going ahead of the CRT boat and the occupants were opening the swing bridges and kindly letting us through as the ‘following boat’.  So Jan had a bit of a rest until we reached Fields Staircase locks(3). I had an opportunity to chat to the CRT staff whilst assisting them with the flight.  They were a gate crew prepositioning the boat for the winter maintenance work.  The boat had originally come from Liverpool and was apparently rather hard to steer.  After watching the steerer navigate a couple of the bridge openings it was apparent he only had a couple of inches to spare on either side.  I asked what the large square plastic containers in the bow held and was informed they held water as ballast.  Without it the stern would be dragging on the bottom.

The CRT worker then noticed a marking on the inside of one of the lock coping stones and got down on his knees to have a closer look.

He told me that he’d replaced the adjacent lock gates several years ago and hadn’t noticed the date at that time.  He was also very positive about CRT’s future as a charitable trust.  Telling me he though the new CEO seemed an excellent choice and that he and his colleagues were impressed that the CEO delivered on his commitments.  He also believed there had been a significant increase in available funds from commercial donations.  I do hope he is right!

After the working boat had gone down the flight and departed I reset the locks.  That wasn’t quite as easy as I had thought because someone had stolen the large metal CRT sign which had the instructions.  Looking at the second chamber I could see a red strip in the inside of the left gate.

I guessed this was a marker and the lock water level in the lock had to cover the marker before releasing the water in the top lock.  This subsequently appeared to be correct.  The second lock chamber was bigger than the top chamber.  If the second chamber wasn’t partially filled first then the boat might catch on the gate sill when going from the top to middle chambers.

I had just entered the top chamber when a hire boat arrived. <great timing>  We had a partner to go down the flight and; more importantly; an additional two lock assistants.  We then alternated stopping for swing bridges until arriving at the top of Dobsons Staircase Locks (2). There were CRT facilities at the top and we wanted to top up the water tank as well as disposing of the rubbish. 

Our locking companion didn’t want water as they were returning the boat the following day, however they decided to wait for us to go down the flight together.  The water pressure from the tap was woeful and despite our tank already being three quarters full it still wasn’t full after the tap had been running 30 minutes.  In the end we gave up on the tap and decided to push on.

Further leap-frogging took place at the swing bridges until we reached Apperley Bridge Marina where the hire boat crew stopped to return their boat.

The canal continued through semi rural countryside.  It was slow going as the bottom of the canal appears to be rather close to the top.  However the long weed appears to be doing a good job of filtering the water.  Actually this may not be a good thing because you could see all the rubbish on the bottom.  At one point an enormous fish (500mm) swam beside the stern.  It looked like a predator to me!

We’re in the Aire Valley with the River Aire to one side of the canal and now we also have the railway squeezing in beside the canal.

Railway crosses the River Aire

We called it a day at Rodley stopping on the 7 Day moorings which we have to ourselves.  Timing was perfect because the heavens opened just after we had moored and erected the pram cover.  Jan is going to make blackberry and apple jam and we’ll probably wander along to the nearby Railway Inn for a Sunday roast. 

I need to walk off the vanilla slice…. We actually the four vanilla slices.

Aldi Moorings

One of the small projects I have been working on is to locate and create a Garmin map point for any supermarkets in close proximity to the canals.  It’s a large project so I’m taking my time.  Actually I’ll probably be leaving a request in my will for it to be completed!
There is an Asda supermarket in Shipley, but I then identified the Shipley Aldi was adjacent to the canal.  A high row of trees on the off-side bank obscures it from the canal.  The following map shows the general location.  We moored on the 7 day moorings at Salts Wharf which we found very good from a security aspect.  They are on the off-side and surrounded by commercial offices which provide good security lighting.  There is no nearby residential housing and no through access.  The same cannot be said for the 24 hour moorings adjacent to Aldi.

CRT’s Gallows Bridge 24 Hour Mooring is also on the off-side and is adjacent to a footbridge across the canal.  Access to the mooring is from the southern end of the footbridge.  There is significant foot traffic crossing the footbridge.
In the photo below you can see the 24 hour mooring.  There is probably only room for one 60’ boat.  A set of steps takes you down to a roadway behind the mooring (right arrow) there is also a locked gate leading to long term moorings at the left end of the CRT mooring (left arrow).  There is another access gate (low and unlocked) at the western end of the mooring which it just out of sight at the right end of the photo.

These are the steps and gate from the footbridge to the mooring (photo below).  This gate doesn’t provide much security.

This is the view from the minor road (alleyway) behind the mooring.  As you can see in the photo there is a high stone wall and full height gate leading to the 24 hour mooring.  The gate was open but I noticed it had a padlock which didn’t use the BW key.  I suspect the long term moorers probably lock this gate in an effort to provide some increased security.

The following Google Earth screen dump shows the two available routes from the mooring to Aldi.  Obviously the full height gate immediately behind the mooring is the shortest route.

Irrespective of the route you take you will need to either carry your items up or down steps.  There is also a Scottish restaurant besides Aldi for those who like that type of food!
Off towards Leeds tomorrow…… weather permitting!

Fixed the Samsung Phone & fuel usage

Readers you may recall I’ve been having a problem with the Samsung smartphone (Galaxy S4 LTE) which I bought back from overseas.  The problem with the phone was it wouldn’t find a UK network.  The phone had been purchased outright and wasn’t locked to a mobile network provider.  However when I approached Samsung UK about the problem under warranty they told me to contact the country of purchase.  I contacted the country of purchase who told me to bring the phone to them.  All of this was less than helpful!

I’m pleased to report have fixed the problem and the phone has found the Vodafone UK network.  A quick recap.  Samsung has two separate locks on their mobile products.  A carrier lock if you’ve purchased the phone on a plan and a Region lock which prevents you from purchasing a new phone in one region of the world and then used in another.  Samsung also incorporate a “country code” into the phone software.  Finally, they release software updates for different regions at different times.

I had resolved the problem of the Region Lock by using the phone in the country of purchase prior to returning to the UK.  But the software inside the phone was for the country of purchase and not the UK version.  I guessed (correctly) that this might be the problem.  All Samsung had to do was tell me I needed to replace the original software with the UK version.

The Samsung upgrade program doesn’t allow you to change the region software.  It will only allow you to upgrade the software for the country of origin.  However there is a 3rd party program named “Odin” which will allow you to replace the software with another version.  Samsung doesn’t provide access to their various software versions (firmware) but I found a website where it could be downloaded.

Link to Odin

Link to Samsung Firmware website  You must register to download from the site.

Before replacing the firmware I had to “Root” the phone.  The term Root actually means to circumvent the protection the manufacture places on the firmware.  The equivalent Apple term is “Jailbreak”.  I downloaded and used a program named CF-Auto_Root to give me unrestricted access to the phone firmware (ie, to Root it).  I used Odin to run CF-Auto_Root which then enabled me to use Odin to change the firmware to a UK version.

Instructions on how to change the Samsung phone Firmware can be found here.

I actually made the process more complicated that it should have been because I tried to install an earlier version of the firmware.  This resulted in me “bricking” the phone (this means making it as useless as a brick).  Eventually I managed to replace the original software with a generic UK version.  After rebooting the phone it immediately registered on the UK Vodafone network.  I even get network coverage inside the boat!   At last the phone is working correctly (fingers crossed)

Fuel

We last topped up the diesel tanks at Wheaton Ashton back on 10 July.  Today I checked the engine tank fuel level and we have just under half a tank left.  My rough calculations indicate we are using slightly more than four litres of fuel daily.  I want to keep the back of the boat as high as possible because we may travel over the Rochdale Canal.  Therefore, if we add any diesel to the tank it will be a minimal amount just to ensure we reach the western side.  We’ll probably do another toilet tank pump out before the Rochdale.

I promised Jan I’d provide dinner tonight.  Yes….. That was fear I saw in her eyes!  A walk back to Salt Bakery resulted in dinner consisting of delicious pasties and steak & ale pie.  I also took the opportunity to buy another three of those vanilla slices. <burp>

Saltaire

We have spent the day on the 7 day moorings at Salts Wharf, Saltaire in West Yorkshire.  I’d read some information about Saltaire before arriving in the UK and as often happens my preconception about its location was completely wrong.  I was expecting a small town on its own in a narrow wooded valley adjacent to a swiftly flowing river.  Instead we’ve found a village which is now part of the town of Shipley which is surrounded by modern commercial buildings. 

This is Waiouru moored a Salts Wharf.  Ahead of us and around the corner are the 24 hour moorings adjacent to Aldi (a future stop!)  There are sufficient mooring rings here for two 60ft boats, but a third boat could squeeze in on the end using pins.

The following map may assist with site orientation.

Waiouru is moored on the 7 day mooring with the 24 hour Aldi moorings further to the right.  There are 6 hour (no overnight) moorings closer to Saltaire.  Salt Bakery (more on that later) can be found on Victoria Road.

The next map provides a closer view of the town layout.

The mill is at D and the worker accommodation at A.  The shopping area is at B with what I believe to be the mill management accommodation at C.

Saltaire was established by Titus Salt in 1851 as a model town.  The name is derived by combining Titus Salt’s name with that of the nearby River Aire. 

Titus Salt decided to combine his existing five woollen mills into one new mill at this location near Shipley.  Much like the Bourneville Brothers in Birmingham he decided to build a model town for his mill and workers.  He built stone terraced houses with all the modern conveniences of the day (bath houses, school, hospital, gym, concert hall, church, etc).  No doubt he had little difficulty in enticing his workers away from their slums in Bradford.  Salt obviously had an eye for productivity because he didn’t allow “mother’s ruin” into the town (no alcohol outlets).

In 2001 Saltaire was designated a World Heritage Site by UNESCO.  It remains a lived in town but every building is individually heritage grade listed.

Victoria Road is the main thoroughfare upon which can be found the concert hall, school, hospital and some of the larger and better homes.  The streets in the worker areas appear to have male and female Christian names.

The Ice Cream boat moored down by the bridge.  Cross the bridge over the canal and you can walk up Victoria Road with the mill on your immediate left.

Beyond the mill the Victoria Road crosses the railway line.  Having the canal and railway were two of the reasons why Titus Salt selected the site.  On the right beyond the railway line is the church.  Initially I thought it was round, however it’s only the front facade that gives this appearance.  The building is actually rectangular.

The area behind and around the church is the terraced housing for the mill workers.

160 years ago these homes must have looked luxurious to a worker from the slums of Bradford.

Services alley at the rear of the terraced homes.

In this next photo you can see the contrast between the original stone houses and the more recent 20th century dwellings that have been built on the fringe of the original town.

Newer homes in the middle distance

At the top of the town is Saltaire Road where the majority of the shops are located.

Only the upper floors appear to be original.  At the western end of the town is the old Tram Shed which has been converted into a pub.

The houses appear to be larger in size and more ornate at the top end of Victoria Road where it joins Saltaire Road.  I suspect this is the mill management accommodation.  It would be the furthest location from the noisy mill down by the canal.

More “up market” homes

Salt’s Mill closed in 1986 and was then purchased and refurbished by Johathan Silver.  It’s now a mixture of business, commerce, leisure and residential use.

It’s possible to see much of the original interior design.  Heavy flagstone pavers on the ground floor.  The ceiling of the ground floor is a combination of riveted cast iron “H” beams infilled with bricks in an arch to prove the strength of the second floor.

At the far end of the hall there was an ancient dental chair with treadle operated drill.  I must be bloody old because I remember the school dental nurse at Waiouru Camp School had a similar machine!

If you walk back down Victoria Road and across the canal you reach the River Aire.  We will be cruising on it shortly, but at the moment it doesn’t look that big.

I can’t finish this post without mentioning Jan Swatridge (nb Qisma) who sent us an email suggesting a visit to Salt Bakery and mentioning their vanilla slice was delicious.

Excellent advice………!  I will have to walk back tomorrow for more.  Perhaps four this time! 

Thanks Jan…….

The Bingley Five Rise and on to Saltaire

A relatively early start for us (8.00am) and a slow cruise took us to the Bingley Five Rise staircase locks.  But first Jan needed to work Waiouru through three swing bridges.  The second proved to be on a relatively busy road and Jan; being the patient person she is; waited several minutes for the road to be clear in both directions before activating the boom gates.  Around the corner came a young male driver who had to stop.  He slumped over the steering wheel and then turned off the car engine.  That’s when Jan realised it was going to be a slow bridge.

The last bridge required the boom gates to be manually moved before activating the bridge electrically.  As Jan pointed out; no two bridge mechanisms were the same!

The most interesting thing about the last bridge was the adjacent cottage.  In the above photo you can see a lower floor doorway opens onto the canal.  The door was actually open as we passed.  There was no barrier preventing someone from accidentally stepping into the canal!

There are CRT facilities and a cafe above the Bingley Five Rise Staircase locks.  We stopped at the water point to top up the tank and dispose of the rubbish.

A boat was coming up the flight which meant we had to wait for about 45 minutes before entering the top lock. It looked as if we would be the only boat going down when a boat appeared from behind us…… Good timing!

It’s a drop of just over 18 metres from the top to the bottom.  About the length of Waiouru.

The flight is one of the notable canal structures opening in 1774.  Each lock is directly joined to adjacent locks by the highest lock gates on the English canal network. It’s also the steepest flight of locks in England.  Jan got to see all the interesting stuff as I was down in each lock chamber on the back of the boat.  Hence no photos of us going down.

We were worked down the flight by a cheerful permanent CRT employee and a volunteer lock keeper.

It’s only a short cruise to the Bingley Three Rise Staircase Flight where another permanent CRT employee assisted us down.  Jan got chatting to him and discovered he was from Keighley and had been working on the canals for nine years.

One thing we have noticed during our time on the Leeds – Liverpool Canal is the number of lock paddles that are out of service awaiting repair.  It’s not a heavily used canal so one would hope this situation is going to be reversed.

Jan’s grandmother came from the Leeds, Keighley area and she now wishes she had paid more attention to her grandmother’s memories of the area when she was a young girl.

We worked our way through the Dowley Gap staircase locks (2) with our lock companions from the Bingley Five rise.  They then decided to moor whilst we pushed on to the final lock for the day.  Hirst Lock proved to be a bastard.  Immediately in front of the lock is a locked swing bridge.  I waited with Waiouru whilst Jan fought her way through the gongoozlers (rubber-neckers) to fill the lock.  Then the gates wouldn’t open (too heavy and too stiff).  None of the gongoozlers offered any assistance and eventually I left Waiouru unattended (we don’t like doing that) to help open the top gates.  Jan then attempted to unlock the swing bridge.  After several minutes I went forward to help her.  Retrieving the key from the bridge lock then proved to be a further challenge.  Jan was able empty the lock but really struggled opening the gates…….. with all the gongoozlers watching.

The decision to keep going rather than mooring for lunch proved to be very sound as we were able to grab the last vacant mooring at Saltaire (more on that tomorrow).  Since mooring we have seen a number of boats cruising past in both directions looking for a mooring.  Mooring before 2.30pm is proving to be a good routine.

Mexican Standoff and the Headless Lady

You’d have to be amused.  We arrived at our 3rd swing bridge to find it closed with a day boat tied to the bridge bollards on our side.  On the far side there was a private boat moored on the other set of bridge bollards and a lady was sitting on a bench seat watching the world go bye.

I managed to get close enough to the towpath for Jan to reach the bank.  She walked forward to the day boat and asked them if they were going through the bridge “No! We’re waiting for our ladies who have gone into the village to shop.”  Jan then politely informed them they shouldn’t moor on the bridge mooring as it was needed for boats going through.  The two members of the day boat crew then asked Jan what they should do.  Jan suggested they pull their boat back from the bollards and moor against the edge.  They were happy to do this.  It appeared obvious that they didn’t understand the protocol.

Jan then went to the bridge, unlocked it; and opened it for me.  As I approached the open bridge the lady on the bench seat got up and went back to the private boat on the other side of the open bridge.  Husband appeared from below and untied the boat before motoring through the open swing bridge. 

Had we arrived at the scene of a Mexican Standoff?  Rather funny anyway!

Just past the village of Low Bradley is Hamblethorpe Swing Bridge and it was damned stiff to operate.  I was watching Jan struggle with it when I realised there was an interesting memorial behind her.

The camera was on the wrong setting and I was also doing two other things so the photo isn’t very good.  However it appeared to be a Polish Eagle with the Red & White checker symbol of Poland.  A subsequent google search revealed it was indeed a Polish war memorial. 

AT NOON on September 23rd 1943 the Polish crew of Wellington bomber HZ251 took off from Skipton on Swale in North Yorkshire for a routine training mission. Shortly afterwards their aircraft fell out of the sky; crashing on the banks of the Leeds-Liverpool canal at Bradley, near Skipton. None of the crew survived.

The canal continued along following the contour lines on the side of the valley. There were good views to the west and south.

It actually turned out to be a much longer cruise than we had planned as we were unable to get against the bank.  The bottom of the canal is also rather close to the top in places which made it slow going.

At one point we got a hell of a surprise when a monstrous boat appeared on a bend going in the opposite direction.

After the initial shock we realised it only appeared to be larger than normal otherwise it wouldn’t have fitted through all the bridge holes and locks.  As the steerer passed us he looked at us and called out “Waiouru!”  He even pronounced it correctly. Then he mentioned they had been to NZ and were going back shortly.  We’ve actually been quite surprised by the number of Brits who have visited NZ.

Jan was particularly taken with this house <click click>

Oh… the headless lady!  She was sitting on a bench seat outside a house in Farnhill.

Jan had noticed a large number of ripe blackberries at our last swing bridge.  After mooring for the day we walked back and picked 2.5 pounds.  Should be enough for some blackberry and apple jam.

Now, the reason for the delayed post.

I was attempting to download some canal information from the gps to the laptop and the laptop wasn’t recognising the gps. <grrrr> When I attempted to restore an earlier laptop configuration file the operating system “locked up”.  Not a problem <I think>; I’ll just run the recovery program.  That didn’t work <grrr>.  Actually it got worse……  I was locked out of the operating system getting the BSOD <help>.  After pulling the boat apart I found my recovery usb thumbstick. <phew>  Only to discover I was now locked out of the hard drive which had the operating system <oh no…. this is serious>.  Do I have to reformat the hard drive and reinstall all the programs and data.  Actually the advice on Google was to take the back off the laptop and remove one of the hard drives before attempting to reinstall the operating system, followed by all my data.  That will take hours.  Eventually I found a blog link where some clever geek had explained the problem could be fixed by repairing the disk master boot record with three lines of DOS text. And it worked!  Oh thank you…. You’ve saved me hours of grief!

Normal service has resumed…..

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The blog is currently down for maintenance to resolve a technical problem.

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Please accept our apologies for the interuption.

The Castle

We awoke to more rain however the weather during the day then alternated between sunshine and rain.

When we went into Skipton we both noted that nb Lakeland (photo below) was still on the 24 hour moorings.  This would be day 3.

But then during our time on the L & L we have seen the same boat moored on two water points, a private mooring and a lock mooring.  If you wanted to write something positive you could state he is consistent!

Jan had some further retail therapy which included me buying a replacement lightweight fleece for the one I bought with me from Oz back in 2011.  It was getting rather thin.  The Yorkshire Rose pub in Coach Street provided our Sunday roast beef lunch.  Nothing special to mention about it!

In the afternoon I went and did a tour of Skipton Castle.  The original castle was built in the Norman style around 1090 as a rammed earth and timber structure before being replaced with a stone version approximately 20 years later.  It’s locally claimed to be one of the most well preserved medieval castles in England.  After examining it I suspect not much of the original structure is Norman and it’s obviously been extended over the centuries.

Gatehouse

The castle was the last Royalist stronghold in the north and held out against the parliamentarian forces for three years before surrendering.  Oliver Cromwell then ordered that the walls be reduced to prevent it being fit for cannon.  After the civil war Lady Anne Clifton petitioned Oliver Cromwell for permission to rebuild the castle.  He gave his approval on the condition the new walls were not capable of supporting cannons on the roof.  The difference in wall thicknesses can be seen in the following photo.

The new wall is less than half the thickness of the original

I assume the original rooftop would have been made from stone to support the weight and recoil from the cannons.  The existing roof is held on timber frames which probably means they date from the mid 15th century.

The staircases are all the classic circular clockwise style.

This made it harder for a right handed attacker to go up the stairs against a right handed defender. 

Lady Anne Clifton reputedly planted a Yew tree in the castle inner courtyard on the completion of the rebuilding and this is allegedly the same tree.

However I don’t believe this is the original privy seat.

Only one privy in the entire castle……. at times there must have been a long queue!

The rear of the castle is higher than the front.

That’s the privy on the top right of the photo.  Don’t look up… you might get hit!

The ground leading to the main gate is less steep and therefore more heavily fortified.

The arrow loops (balistraria) provide interlocking arcs of fire and are also strategically placed to cover the main entrance through the gatehouse.

Interestingly wikipedia reports that Norman castles were not built with arrow loops and that they were a later concept.  A quick look at photos of the White Tower at the Tower of London suggest this is correct.  This means that much of the existing Skipton Castle is post Norman.

However there were still plenty of Normans inside the castle grounds.