The ancient village of Cowling sits across a hillside in the Pennine Hills, just seven miles from the market town of Skipton. A thriving village, built along a main high street with stone-built, terraced houses set alongside the mills of a bygone age. The village was once sparsely populated, the bulk of the population living in Ickornshaw and Middleton, and before that on Cowling Hill, close to water sources they depended on, and the main roads of the day – now used as back roads by locals to avoid the modern day traffic. In the early days, agriculture was the main occupation, with corn being grown and ground within the village. When canal transport boomed, corn became cheaper to buy from elsewhere and so the mills in Cowling turned from grinding corn to weaving during the Industrial Revolution. The village inn was once part of a farmhouse on Cowling Hill, but was sold as changes to the structure of the village began. The son of the landlord later opened the Bay Horse Hotel on the new road, which still stands as a main feature of village life.
