Our main interest in stopping here in West Yorkshire was visiting Shibden Hall. However, being a Sunday, we noted that the Hall does not open until 11:00AM so our first stop was at Kirkstall Abby, a ruined Cistercian monastery in the north-west of Leeds City center. Built in the 12th century, the monastery was abandoned in 1539 due to Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries. Still, what remains of the buildings are impressive.
From here we headed to Halifax. Still too early to head to the Shibden estate, we stopped at the Piece Hall. Built in 1779 as a cloth hall for handloom weavers to sell the woolen cloth “pieces” they had produced. The building is a large quadrangular building occupying an area of ten thousand square yards with two upper stories fronted with two interior colonnades. It contains three hundred and fifteen separate rooms. Currently the space is used as a concert venue with several dining establishments along its perimeter.
From here we stopped briefly at the Halifax Minster. We could not go in as services were being held at the time, Sunday remember. Standing on the site of an earlier Norman church, the church was built during the 15th century.
Now we headed to Shibden Hall. This is an historic house dating from 1420. From 1612 on it was the home of the Lister family until 1926 when it was donated to the Halifax Corporation which opened it as a museum in 1934. One of its most notable residents was Anne Lister who inherited the hall. Lister has been described as being the “first modern lesbian” due to her “love of the fairer sex” that she documented in her diaries. Anne traveled widely and felt the Hall needed upgrades and under her direction many additions and alterations were made to Shibden Hall, not all of which were appreciated by others. At one time, she wanted to call it Shibden Castle but was dissuaded by her friends.
The building is filled with stories of Anne and her family as well as exhibits of costumes and props used in the filming of the BBC series “Gentleman Jack” that tells her story as reported in her diaries which were written in code.
Leaving Shibden we stopped to tour the Bronte parsonage, the home of Patrick Bronte and his famous novelist daughters. Here is told the story of how the sisters grew and wrote as and the sad tale of the early deaths of such talented women.
Our final stop of the day was the National Museum of Arms and Armor. I had visited this some years ago and while much has changed the one thing that didn’t was the opportunity to actually touch and feel some of the exhibits and weapons on display. What was very poignant at the entrance there are several quotes. One, attributed to A. Einstein: “I do not know with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
Inside there are displays of weapons from early spears, swords and armor from around the world to more current armaments.
