Established | 1420 |
---|---|
Location | Lister’s Road, Halifax, West Yorkshire, England HX3 6XG |
Coordinates | 53°43′41.7″N1°50′24″W / 53.728250°N 1.84000°W |
Type | Historic house museum |
Website | Shibden Hall |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
Official name | Shibden Hall |
Designated | 3 November 1954 |
Reference no. | 1254036 |
Shibden Hall is a Grade II* listed historic house located in a public park at Shibden, West Yorkshire, England. The building has been extensively modified from its original design by generations of residents, although its Tudor half-timbered frontage remains its most recognisable feature.
One of its most notable residents was Anne Lister who inherited the hall from a relative. Lister has been described as being the "first modern lesbian" due to her "love... [of] the fairer sex" that she documented in her diaries. [1]
The hall dates back to around 1420 when it was recorded as being inhabited by one William Otes. [2] Before 1612, the estate was owned by the Savile and Waterhouse families. The three families' armorial symbols are recorded in a stone-mullioned 20-light window at the hall. [3] It was acquired on behalf of John Hemingway, who died young, in 1612 and was then inherited by Hemingway's uncle, Samuel Lister, in 1619. [4]
For more than 300 years (1619 to 1926) the Shibden estate was in the hands of the Lister family, wealthy mill owners and cloth merchants, the most famous resident being Anne Lister (1791–1840), who became sole owner of the hall after the death of her aunt. She commissioned York architect John Harper and landscape gardener Samuel Gray in 1830 to make extensive improvements to the house and grounds. A gothic tower was added to the building for use as a library and the major features of the park were created, including terraced gardens, rock gardens, cascades and a boating lake. [5] A "Paisley shawl" garden designed for the terrace by Joshua Major was added in the 1850s. After Anne Lister died in 1840 in the Caucasus, the estate passed to her partner, Ann Walker, who died in 1854. Possession then returned to the Lister family. When John Lister experienced financial difficulties, Arthur McCrea took over the mortgages. McCrea subsequently donated the hall to Halifax Corporation. [6] In 1934 the Corporation opened it as a museum. [7] The estate became a public park in 1926 and the hall a museum in 1934. [4]
The property has been a Grade II* listed building since 3 November 1954. [6] The park and gardens were restored between 2007 and 2008 with almost £3.9 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £1.2 million from Calderdale Council. [8] The gardens were listed Grade II on 27 June 2000. [9]
The hall is currently open to the public, the West Yorkshire Folk Museum being housed in an adjoining barn and farm buildings. The hall has a variety of restored workshops, including a brewery, a basket-weaving shop, a tannery, a stable and an extensive collection of horse-drawn carriages. The park also contains a dry stone walling exhibition, a children's play area, and a miniature steam railway. [10] [11]
The hall has been used for filming the movie Peterloo , and the 2019 and 2022 BBC/HBO television series Gentleman Jack about its former owner Anne Lister. [12] [13] As a result of the television series, watched by almost six million people each week, the hall saw a trebling of visitors, leading Calderdale Council to plan an extension of the opening times. [14]
The music room contains a square piano, dated 1769, by John Pohlman, one of his oldest. The piano is unrestored, though its stand is of a later date. [15]
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire to the north and east, South Yorkshire and Derbyshire to the south, Greater Manchester to the south-west, and Lancashire to the west. The city of Leeds is the largest settlement.
Elland is a market town in Calderdale, in the county of West Yorkshire, England. It is situated south of Halifax, by the River Calder and the Calder and Hebble Navigation. Elland was recorded as Elant in the Domesday Book of 1086. It had a population in 2001 of 14,554, with the ward being measured at 11,676 in the 2011 Census.
Shibden is a small dispersed community in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. Shibden Hall has a north-west driveway to its lake, café and miniature railway; an adjoining driveway runs up a landscaped garden to the hall which hosts the West Yorkshire Folk Museum. The land sits on a north–south rise between deep brooks, shared with more populous Southowram to the south.
Sowerby Bridge is a market town in the Upper Calder Valley in Calderdale in West Yorkshire, England. The Calderdale Council ward population at the 2011 census was 11,703.
Temple Newsam, is a Tudor-Jacobean house in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, with grounds landscaped by Capability Brown. The house is a Grade I listed building, one of nine Leeds Museums and Galleries sites and part of the research group, Yorkshire Country House Partnership.
Calderdale is a metropolitan borough of West Yorkshire, England, which had a population of 211,439. It takes its name from the River Calder, and dale, a word for valley. The name Calderdale usually refers to the borough through which the upper river flows, while the actual landform is known as the Calder Valley. Several small valleys contain tributaries of the River Calder. The main towns of the borough are Brighouse, Elland, Halifax, Hebden Bridge, Sowerby Bridge and Todmorden.
Anne Lister was an English diarist, famous for revelations for which she was dubbed "the first modern lesbian."
Luddenden is a district of Calderdale 3.1 miles (5 km) west of Halifax on the Luddenden Brook in the county of West Yorkshire, England.
Scout Hall at Shibden near Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, was built in 1680 for John Mitchell (1659–1696), who had inherited great wealth as a silk merchant. Mitchell was castigated by the preacher Oliver Heywood for his dissolute way of life, spending his money on horse racing and drink. The house is a 'calendar' building, supposedly of 12 bays, with 52 doors and 365 panes of glass. It is Grade II* listed but is on the English Heritage 'buildings at risk' register.
Northowram is a village lying north-east of the town of Halifax in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It stands on the north side of Shibden valley. Southowram stands on the southern side of the valley.
Shibden Valley is to the east of Halifax, West Yorkshire, England, where the community of Shibden lies. The name of the Shibden valley comes from scepe dene meaning "sheep valley" or "Sheep Vale". The area was heavily involved in wool production but was also a site of much coal production and flagstones from Northowram, Southowram and Hipperholme areas.
Wainhouse Tower is a folly in the parish of King Cross, on the south-west side of Halifax, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, in England. At 275 feet (84 m), it is the tallest structure in Calderdale and the tallest folly in the world, and was erected between 1871 and 1875. The main shaft is octagonal in shape and has a square base and 369 steps leading to the first of two viewing platforms which is open to the public, and a total of 405 to the top viewing platform which is usually closed to the public. The tower is open to the public during bank holidays, and is a Grade II* listed building.
Halifax is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It is near the east Pennine foothills. In the 15th century, the town became an economic hub of the old West Riding of Yorkshire, primarily in woollen manufacture with the large Piece Hall square later built for trading wool in the town centre. The town was a thriving mill town during the Industrial Revolution with the Dean Clough Mill buildings a surviving landmark. In 2011, it had a population of 88,134. It is also the administrative centre of the wider Calderdale Metropolitan Borough.
Kirklees Priory was a Cistercian nunnery whose site is in the present-day Kirklees Park, Clifton near Brighouse, Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It was originally in the ancient ecclesiastical parish of Dewsbury. The priory dedicated to the Virgin Mary and St James was founded by Reiner le Fleming, Lord of the manor of Wath upon Dearne, in 1155 during the reign of Henry II.
Stoney Royd Cemetery is a cemetery in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England.
William Swinden Barber FRIBA, also W. S. Barber or W. Swinden Barber, was an English Gothic Revival and Arts and Crafts architect, specialising in modest but finely furnished Anglican churches, often with crenellated bell-towers. He was based in Brighouse and Halifax in the West Riding of Yorkshire. At least 15 surviving examples of his work are Grade II listed buildings, including his 1875 design for the Victoria Cross at Akroydon, Halifax. An 1864 portrait by David Wilkie Wynfield depicts him in Romantic garb, holding a flower. He served in the Artists Rifles regiment in the 1860s alongside Wynfield and other contemporary artists.
The People's Park is a park in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. It was given to the people of Halifax in 1857 by local carpet manufacturer Sir Francis Crossley.
Holdsworth House is a Grade II* listed building at Holdsworth in Halifax, West Yorkshire, England. Built in 1633, it is a Jacobean mansion built in sandstone with narrow, leaded windows.
Ann Walker was an Englishwoman, married in Britain's first known lesbian wedding, to diarist and fellow Yorkshire landowner Anne Lister. Their union was solemnised by taking the sacrament together on Easter Sunday in 1834 at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, which bears a commemorative plaque acknowledging the event. Walker inherited half of her family's estate, Crow Nest, located in Lightcliffe, West Yorkshire, near Shibden Hall, Lister's family estate, in Calderdale. Both women inherited their respective estates during the early 19th century, when primogeniture, the custom of granting lands and property to the oldest surviving son, dominated European law and society. They were travelling abroad together when Lister fell ill and died. Research into their diaries and letters suggest Walker may have experienced bouts of anxiety and depression throughout portions of her life.
Northowram is in the ward of Northowram and Shelf in the metropolitan borough of Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England. It contains 32 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, five are at Grade II*, the middle of the three grades, and the others are at Grade II, the lowest grade. The ward contains the village of Northowram, and areas to the west extending to the eastern boundary of Halifax, and includes the settlements of Shibden, Stump Cross and Claremount. Most of the listed buildings are houses, cottages and associated structures, farmhouses, and farm buildings. The other listed buildings include churches, a public house, an underground bath house, a slab wall, a former textile mill converted into flats, and a boundary stone.