Oakwell Hall
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Oakwell Hall is a country house in the village of Birstall in the English administrative unit of West Yorkshire . The Elizabethan style house is listed by English Heritage as a Grade I Historic Building. It is set in contemporary gardens surrounded by 45 hectares of landscaped grounds.
The builder was John Batt . A carved stone with the year 1583 probably indicates the time of construction. The property had been bought by his father, who was born in Halifax and was receiving a pension from the Savile family who lived at Howley Hall , Batley .
Oakwell Hall became immortal in literature as the "fieldhead" featured in Charlotte Brontë's novella Shirley .
history
John Batt built the mansion after his Halifax father, a Savile pensioner who resided at Howley Hall , Batley , bought the property. The hard sandstone house was built with an early modern floor plan with a hall in the middle flanked by wings. You enter through a vestibule and a screen passage at the lower end of the house. A hewn stone there bears the year 1583 and probably indicates the year of construction.
Oakwell Hall was owned by the community in 1928 and is now owned by Kirklees Cultural Services ; it is run by volunteers from the Friends of Oakwell Hall and Country Park . The interior was restored using an inventory from 1611 in the style of the early 17th century, the time the Batt family lived here. During the restoration work, the original painted panels of the large salon and bedroom were revealed under layers of glaze and paint.
Interior decoration
The imposing main hall originally had two floors, but in the middle of the 17th century, John Batt's grandson had the ceiling removed and a gallery and a large, Ajimez window installed. This was the main passage room of the house connecting the center and the wings. It served as a reception room for guests, tenants and business people as well as for larger gatherings. It is only sparsely furnished. The table is at one end of the room, as it was in the 17th century, and not in the middle, as it used to be. The size of the room should impress visitors.
The Great Salon was the most important room in the early 17th century. According to the inventory list from 1611, the best furniture was displayed there and it contained the Batts map collection. In the 1630s, Batt had the wonderful stucco ceiling and painted oak panels, as well as a landscape painting above the open fireplace, added. The painting technique with glaze was a type of decoration that created a mood of warmth and grandeur. Only a few examples of this decorative work have survived to this day. At the end of the 17th century the dining rooms and drawing rooms were the preferred spaces for dining and entertaining private guests. The large salon is furnished with pieces of furniture that make it appear as a fashionable and comfortable room from the 1690s
In 1690 the bedroom of the great drawing room was occupied by John Batt. He has a garderobe installed or a toilet in the outer wall. The laying of rush mats there and in other rooms used by the family was a sign of a rich household and the mats were warmer than the usual floor boards or stone floors. The fireplace wasn't added until the 19th century, one of the few changes that had been made since the 17th century. The inclusion of a table and chairs in a 17th century bedroom was not uncommon. Sleeping chambers were used in two ways; next to the bedroom of the owner they often served as a room for guests with their wine or cards.
The kitchen was one of the busiest rooms in the house. The lady of the house supervised the female servants in the preparation of the dishes, the medicines or the porpourris and there was a real flow of traders, messenger boys and servants of the noble visitors. At meal times, the servants gathered in front of their wooden plates. When the country house was built, food was probably cooked over a large fire at one end of the Great Hall, but at the time of the inventory list of 1611 the kitchen was a separate room in the east wing. The kitchen is separated from the other living rooms by an umbrella passage. The 17th century open fireplace that was replaced in the 19th century was arguably larger and wider.
The kitchen bedroom
The servants slept in the kitchen bedroom and it served as a pantry. It is not clad with wood and has no ceiling. It is next to the back staircase above the kitchen and was accessible to the servants via this. In many houses in the area, the kitchen bedroom was used to store food. In 1611 it had five containers for storing food and grain. Today she only has one large container and a number of food boxes. The lack of an open fireplace and bare walls will have made it very cold in winter, although the warmth of the kitchen below kept the food dry.
According to the inventory list of 1611, the household had 17 beds of various designs, pull-out beds for the servants and great four-poster beds for the family members. Older beds were moved to less important rooms. The bedroom of the small salon is furnished with older furniture and served as the second most important bedroom in the house. Reproductions of picture knitting adorn the walls. In the 19th century this room was rebuilt by adding a staircase and a corridor. The original, wooden framework with its lath-and-plaster structure can be seen on two walls.
The layout of the New Salon shows typical details of a modest dining room from the 17th century. The servants set the food on a side table and served it to the family. Pewter and china plates were placed in the cupboard; it could be locked, as could the little spice cupboard in the corner. The lady of the house had the keys, as spices were valuable ingredients.
A household of the lower nobility also had lodgings visitors in the 17th century. In such a case, the bedchamber of the New Salon, the second best in the house, was occupied by the nanny and her entourage or other members of the inn. The screen at right angles to the entrance protected from drafts through the bed curtains. In an adjoining dressing room or closed room, reproductions of clothes are exhibited today. The warm colors of the wall paneling and the bed curtains are matched by a table runner, a detail of wealthy households in the 17th century. Tables or beds were often used for carpets that were too valuable to walk on.
The painted bedroom is furnished with reproductions of oak furniture to show what it looked like when it was new (i.e., not darkened by age or buffing wax). The painted wall coverings show a larger pattern than that of the Great Salon and are less ornate. They were discovered under several layers of emulsion paint and are believed to date from the 17th century. The room is furnished as a bedroom for the lady of the house; a small table by the window provides most of the light for sewing work. The floors were re-laid in the style of the 17th century. In 1609 a floor was laid for the price of 5 s 10 d for seven days of work, as the household account book shows. The painted wall paneling creates a three-dimensional effect by imitating the grainy structure of wood. The wild "Tilden" were supposed to imitate walnut wood , which became fashionable towards the end of the 17th century. It was expensive so they had the structure painted. The paint was linseed oil based and feathers and combs were pulled over it to create the grainy effect.
The study is a small room accessible from the gallery above the entrance hall. The 1611 inventory shows that Robert Batt had over 60 books at a time when books were expensive and very few people could read. He graduated from the University of Oxford and became principal at Newton Tony in Wiltshire.
estate
Capricorn
A statue of an ibex stands on the lawn in front of the country house. It is said to have stood above the gates of Dewsbury Brewery .
Formal gardens
There are formal gardens around the country house, e.g. B. a herb garden on the side. Herbs and flowers were important ingredients for the housewife and the cook. They were distilled to create scented oils, are the basis of herbal medicines, and played an important culinary role. Although the Oakwell Hall herb garden is small, it gives a sense of the herbs available. More than 80 different herbs can be found in the garden and many more are planted among the flowers in the formal gardens behind the country house.
Restoration work has been carried out to restore the formal gardens to what they were in the 1690s using plants that were popular at the time. The garden includes a ground floor with topiary hedges and trimmed box hedges. The patterns of the box hedges were modeled on the furniture and stucco work in the country house; they show the diamond pattern common in the area. Trellises were made from locally available materials using 17th century joinery techniques. Even the green color in which the wooden parts were painted was typical of that time.
park
In the 45 hectares of parkland there are different habitats that make up a landscape park: light forest, watercourses, pasture land, ponds and mule tracks. There are several paths through the park with nature trail signs. Information points with detailed information about flora and fauna can be found along these paths. One way out of the park to a Civil War memorial site , the site of the Battle of Adwalton Moor , another to the Red House Museum .
In Colliery Field , now grazing in the middle of the park were once the slag heaps of Gomersal Colliery , which was closed in the 1970s. The nutrient-poor soil was sown with meadow plants such as the meadow clover , the poor meadow marguerite , the small brown elk and the small rattle pot . The nectar-rich plants attract insects, especially bumblebees . The field is sometimes used for historical battle reenactments from the Civil War, horse shows, and country shows.
The coal pond was created when the National Coal Board had a concrete road built to facilitate the removal of spoil. Today the Betronstrasse lies under the sward and acts as a dam . In aquatic plants in the pond you can find the swamp forget-me-not , the fever clover and common purple loosestrife . Large numbers of animals are attracted to the pond, e.g. B. Common toads , pond claws , pond newts , pond clams and a variety of small and large dragonflies .
Nova Meadow is a wetland with moisture-loving plants such as the meadow foam , the tussock grass , the meadowsweet , the cuckoo's carnation and the yellow flagged iris . A pond was created in 2003 to attract wildlife, and the southern part of the meadow was converted into bushland, a habitat for goldhamers and bloodlines . In autumn it attracts chokes , Fieldfares and Redwings , which hawthorn berries to eat.
Most of the Nova Wood has one for props for the Gomersal Colliery refuse leave, but the trees are multi-stemmed grapes oak and birch grown. The Nova Wood is covered in a carpet of rabbit bells in spring and offers a habitat for migratory birds such as the chiffchaff and the blackcap in summer .
The Nova Beck is one of two waterways that run through Oakwell Hall Park, both north-south. The Nova Beck forms the western border of the Nova Wood and flows through wildflower meadows. Many species present there, such as the common golden nettle , wood anemone and wild garlic , indicate the old forest. Lobed shield fern , red carnation and real carnation grow in large numbers there.
The Oakwell Beck meanders along the southern boundary of Colliery Field . Along its course you can find open seams of coal and fossil " ripples " from earlier seas. There is not the same variety of plants on this watercourse as on Nova Beck , but in spring and early summer the wooded areas are thickly covered with wild garlic, celandine and snake knotweed . Occasional spots of speckled arum can stick in shadier places. Ash , alder and willow make up most of the trees that provide habitat for the tawny owl .
Ghosts
Legend has it that the ghost of 25-year-old William Batt, a bachelor , whose widowed mother, Elizabeth, lived at Oakwell Hall. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote the story in her Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857):
“It was thought that Captain Batt was far away - his family was in Oakwell Hall - when he strutted down the street on a winter evening twilight, through the hall, up the stairs, and into his own room, where he disappeared. He was killed in a duel in London that very afternoon of December 9, 1684. "
Legend has it that he left a bloody footprint in his bedchamber. The historical facts are that Batt was at the Black Swan in Holborn , London on December 9th, borrowing money. The local diary writer Oliver Haywood made two entries about his death; one says that he died "playing sports", the other that he was "killed by Mr Gream in Barne near London". Batt was buried in Birstall on December 30, 1684 .
Brontë collection
In the 19th century the country house was a girls' school. Charlotte Brontë's best friend, Ellen Nussey, was a student. Charlotte Brontë visited the country house and was inspired to use it as a template for her Fieldhead mansion in her novella Shirley :
“Even if Fieldhead wasn't a special building, it can at least be described as picturesque: its irregular architecture and its gray, mossy coloration suited its time and made its nickname just right. The old, barred windows, the stone porch, the walls, the roof, the mantelpiece were rich in pencil marks and brown stains and shadows. The trees beyond were beautiful, bold, and broad; the cedar on the front lawn was great and the granite runs on the garden wall, the eaten arch of the entrance, were a real feast for the eyes for an artist. "
Elizabeth Gaskell described the house in her discussion of Shirley :
“From“ Bloody Lane ”, shaded by trees, you come to the field in which Oakwell Hall is located (...) A fence in front, half courtyard, half garden, the hall with its wall coverings, with the gallery that extends Opens around to the sleeping quarters, the barbaric, apricot-colored salon, the wonderful view through the garden door over the lawns and the terraces behind, where the soft-colored pigeons still like to coo and strut around in the sun - are described in "Shirley". The scenery of this fiction is very close, the actual events, which suggest that it took place in the immediate vicinity. "
Oakwell Hall is the start of the Brontë Way , a 69 km long long distance footpath that connects Bradford with Haworth and then crosses the southern Pennines and continues to Gawthorpe Hall in Padiham , Lancashire .
Friends of Oakwell Hall and Country Park
The Friends of Oakwell Hall and Country Park are a volunteer support group for the country house and its landscaped park. The Friends support the chief ranger and staff at Oakwell Hall and offer their services both indoors and outdoors.
archeology
Archaeological digs were carried out by WYAS with the help of South Leeds Archeology , a Rothwell community group . In May 2008, the lawn in front of the country house was dug up and post holes were discovered , which presumably came from the farm on the site, which disappeared from the maps between 1834 and 1844.
Individual evidence
- ^ A b Oakwell Hall Including Boundary Wall . Historic England. English Heritage. Retrieved July 28, 2016.
- ↑ Charlotte Brontë: Shirley . 1849.
- ↑ Elizabeth Gaskell: The Life of Charlotte Brontë . 1857.
- ^ MKH Computer Services Ltd .: Brontë Way - LDWA Long Distance Paths . Ldwa.org.uk. Retrieved August 1, 2016.
- ^ Friends of Oakwell Hall and Country Park . Retrieved August 1, 2016.
Web links
Coordinates: 53 ° 44 ′ 22 " N , 1 ° 40 ′ 15" W.