Cononley (/ˈkʊnlə/ KUUN-lə or /ˈkɒnənli/ KON-ən-lee) is a village and civil parish in the Craven district of North Yorkshire, England.

Historically part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cononley is in the Aire Valley 3 miles (5 km) south of Skipton and with an estimated population of 1,080 (2001 est.

By the 12th century the present village had been laid out on a deliberate plan which is most obvious on the north side of Main Street where the plots (or 'tofts') ran northwards to Back (now Meadow) Lane.

In addition, half a dozen former Knights Hospitallers' properties were transferred to the Crown and remained in the hands of the monarch for the remainder of the 16th century.

Many manor court rolls have also been preserved and some 40 of these have now been published, giving an insight into many of the concerns of Cononley people from 1518 to 1852.

However, it and other nearby houses e.g. Bradleys Farm and The New Inn (in which a fragment of a timber cruck frame has been uncovered) may well date, at least in part, from an earlier century.

[12] Roger Swire became a land owner in Cononley about 1627 and by the later 18th century his family had come to dominate property ownership in the village.

A second date stone for 1680, probably removed when ancillary buildings were demolished about 1930, is now owned by members of the current Swire family.

These facts, in addition to the style of the building, suggest that the oldest part of the present Hall was built in the 1680s for Samuel and Elizabeth Swire.

According to John William Moorhouse, who could have been present, during alterations to the building in 1903 a 'secret passage' was found near the large fireplace on the ground floor of 'The Old Hall'.

The discovery was linked to an earlier story that a Jacobite kinsman of the then owners, another Samuel and Elizabeth Swire, had escaped from the hall through such a passage in 1745 when pursued by George II's forces.

[3][13] The passage, perhaps useable by a desperate man, is likely to be the substantial stone walled water conduit seen by Trevor Hodgson in the late 20th century.

[3] Another major beneficiary was Richard Wainman of Carr Head in Cowling, who was a descendant of the above-mentioned Bradley family.

However, a number of farmers received uneconomical, and often poorly situated, allocations as a result of the enclosure and were forced to sell their land to the larger landowners.

Many miners left Cononley when the mine was in decline and only about two dozen men remained to take up other employment in the village.

The economic situation did not favour a plan to build an extensive estate of houses in 1897, partly on the land now occupied by the village playing field, and the scheme failed.

By then the Aireside Mill was occupied by the worsted spinning business of Thomas Stell & Co.[3] In the early 20th century Cononley was a self-sufficient community.

The Village Institute opened in 1909, partly to provide a non-denominational but, more especially, alcohol free place for people to use their leisure time productively.

Part of the working community in the village commute to Skipton and Keighley, and a large number travel long distances, this made possible by frequent electric trains to Leeds and Bradford.