Oakwell Hall, Great Hall Looking West - HLS05989

Slide 11. Very somber it was; long, vast, and dark; one latticed window lit it dimly - the wide old chimney contained now no fire, for the present warm weather needed it not; it was filled with willow boughs. The gallery on high opposite the entrance was seen but in outline, so shadowy became the hall towards its ceiling, carved stags heads with real antlers, looked down grotesquely from the walls. Within and without, it was rambling and incommodious .

Quoting again from 'Shirley' . . . . . .. 'The Parlour was lined with oak, fine, dark glossy panels compassed the walls, gloomily and grandly.Very handsome, reader, these shining brown panels are; very mellow in colouring and tasteful in effect, but - if you know what a Spring Clean is - very execrable and inhuman. Whoever, having the bowels of humanity, has seen servants scrubbing at these polished wooden walls with beeswax cloths, on a warm May day, must allow that they are 'intolerable and not to be endured.'

George Hepworth

Hebden Bridge Literary & Scientific Society

1905 , 1900s

PHDA - Hebden Bridge Local History Society

Pennine Horizons Digital Archive

HLS05989.tif