More information : [SE 217 270] Oakwell Hall [G.T.] (1)
Oakwell Hall has the date 1583 on the porch, but in its present
form is certainly not original. (2)
Oakwell Hall, now the property of Batley Corporation, is used as a Folk Museum. It is well maintained and is an excellent example
of the local 16/17th c. style of architecture.
GP. AO. 63.211.1. shows the S aspect.
The moat has now been converted into a stone walled drain. Its use as a moat seems doubtful, as it was more likely to have been
originally formed by water draining from the spring fed ponds at
SE 21772708 to the Oakwell Beck below. (3)
SE 2711 2174 BATLEY MB NUTTER LANE BIRSTALL
2/40
29.3.63 Oakwell Hall including boundary wall I
Extremely fine hall house, now museum. Probably 1583, built for
John Batt, incorporating timber framed house of the mid C.15, with considerable C.17 refurbishment. Ashlar. Stone slate roof with chamfered gable copings. 2 storeys. An H-plan with central hall
with 2 storey gabled porch to centre right, and gabled wing to
left elevation. Windows are double chamfered and ovolo moulded, mainly with throated hood moulds some of which continue as string courses. 5 projecting chimney breasts, with ashlar stacks, to sides and rear, one to the right side being particularly broad. The central hall window is of 30 lights with king mullion and 2 transoms, and it is thought to be of C.17 date. Arched entrance to open porch to right with recut inscription I.B. 1583. 3-light window to 1st floor. The wings to left and right have 12-light mullioned and transomed windows to ground floor and 12 and 10-light similar windows to 1st floor left and right respectively. The left wing also has inward looking 12-light window with transom to ground floor and 6-light to 1st floor. Rear fenestration includes 12, 14 and 16-light mullioned and transomed windows. Lights are leaded, many with early glazing. Hall window has diamond pattern glazing.
The internal arrangement comprises through screened passage with open hall to left, beyond which is the great parlour or drawing
room to front, and buttery, pantry, dairy and servants hall to rear. To right is a smaller parlour or dining room, with kitchen to rear. At 1st floor level the principal bedroom is above the great
parlour.
The great hall is galleried on 2 sides with vertically symmetrical
turned balusters, and with C.17 plasterwork on underside. Oak
panelling to screen with 2 round arched openings with 3 pairs of
Tuscan columns, thought to be C.17. Gallery is reached by open-well stairs with flat balusters and openwork dog-gates. The fireplace is thought to be C.17. The window jambs in the great parlour have plaster grotesque, possibly early C.17, in the form of lions' heads, caryatids and female figures the latter representing the Celtic goddess of fecundity. The arched fireplace in this room
may be original. The passage ceiling has C.17 plasterwork in
patterns of 3, 5, 6 and 8 sided figures. Plasterwork to the
porch ceiling thought to be C.16.
The stone boundary wall has roll-top coping and large ball
finials to opening in front of entrance, and returns to building
to right.
The building was 'Fieldhead' in Charlotte Bronte's "Shirley".
Geoffrey Woledge, Oakwell Hall, 1978. N. Pevsner, The Buildings
of England, 1979. (4)
SE 218 271. Oakwell Hall, Birstall. Scheduled. (5)
SE 218 271. Oakwell Hall, Birstall. Type B1 moat.
Moat with only two sides appears to be ornamental, but earlier house on site, parts of present house on island may be 16th century. (6)
Please see these sources for additional references. (7-10
SE 217 272. Oakwell Hall, Birstall.
`J A Gilks for Kirklees Libraries and Museums Service directed two seasons of excavation at Oakwell Hall. To the south and east of the present hall, erected in 1583, is a broad and shallow dry moat; two thirds of its length had been re-excavated to natural in the late nineteenth century and early this century it was given a concrete floor and a stone lining. The ground dips gently on the north and falls away steeply on the west, so that no moat was required on those sides. There was an inner perimeter wall of coursed sandstone blocks 1m thick. Six buildings, three of which were superimposed, have been partially excavated within the moated enclosure on the east, and one on the west. Five lay parallel or at right angles to the moat and had walls of coursed sandstone rubble and floors of yellow rammed clay. The remaining buildings, one of which was on the west, had walls of vertical timber posts set in deep pits and clay floors. Pottery from the former five buildings was predominantly thirteenth-fourteenth century East Pennine Gritty Ware, whilst that from the latter two was fifteenth century Cistercian and sixteenth-seventeenth century locally produced coarse wares. No further work is planned. Finds are in the Tolson Memorial Museum.' (11)
Two timbers from the small sunken building excavated at Oakwell Hall were submitted to the University of Sheffield for tree-ring dating.
`The first, an oak upright from the east wall, had insufficient rings for dating, whilst the other, a section of trunk, proved to be ash, a species which can not at present be dated by this method. A third timber, probably a stud from an earlier building of timber-frame construction, was found behind the east wall, and was therefore submitted and was dated to 1490-1535. As the timber was re-used it provides no more than a "terminus post quem" for the construction of the building, though it is clear from the pottery found above the east and north walls that it had been demolished by 1550 and completely buried beneath a layer of clay by c1600. thus, it had a relatively short life, perhaps of only twenty years or less.' (12)
SE 217 271. Oakwell Hall, Birstall.
Rescue excavation by J A Gilks for Kirklees Museums E of Oakwell Hall, a mid 14th century moated site (cf Medieval Archaeology, XXIII (1979) 272 274) has revealed the complete plan of a late medieval sunken building (fig 11). Aligned N-S, it was roughly trapezoidal in plan, 7m long, 1.8m wide at the S end and 2.6m at the N, and 0.7 to 1.2m deep (it was built into a slope). The walls were of wattle and closely-spaced oak posts and stakes; the E wall, which still stood to a height of 0.6m, was supported at the rear by oak planks. It had a raised floor, constructed from reused timbers - some had peg and/or mortice holes - covered by a deposit of water-logged birch chips which yielded large quantities of seeds, fruit stones, beetle remains, straw and much animal hair. A number of timbers, probably from the roof, were found in the bottom and higher up in the fill, whilst around the perimeter, particularly on the W, a series of inwardly-inclined, clay-fast posts might well represent the ends of rafters. The building was dismantled c1500 and subsequently partly filled with clay. In the late 16th century the slight hollow that remained was filled with massive sandstone rubble. The structure is provisionally interpreted as an animal shelter.
A small number of artifacts were recovered, mainly from the layer of birch chips and from behind the E wall, and include a sherd of 14th century East Pennine Gritty ware, the top of a late 15th or early 16th century ovoid-bodied cistern, an iron knife with wooden scales, three large whetstones, and offcuts of leather and fragments of shoes. The bones of sheep/goat were also found. (13)
Not included in current (1994) or previous (1992) Scheduling Lists;
?De-Scheduled. (14)
Grade I Listed hall dated 1853 with earlier timber framing and considerable 17th century refurbishment, descheduled in favour of Listing (probably without visit) in 1990. A survey by Steve Moorhouse in 1986 shows well defined earthworks to the south, east and west of the hall between Oakwell Beck and Nova Lane. Excavations in the late 1970s to the east of the hall uncovered late medieval structures and deposits.
All of the earthworks depicted by Moorhouse can be identified with care, but probably only when the grass is very short. Those to the west of the hall are garden terraces and walkways and are the most obvious. Those along Nova Lane are believable as house platforms, but are very slight. The earthworks adjacent to the drive to the hall (area g on Moorhouse's plan) are the least convincing, other depictions could be read from this area of slight hummocky ground. All of the features marked on Moorhouse's plan are less obvious than expected from the depiction.
The earthworks are not thought to be of national significance and are more appropriately managed through the local planning system. (15)
Oakwell Hall was built by John Batt in 1583 and is maintained as a period house dating to the 1690s. It has a good collection of period furniture which provides an insight into a post English Civil War household.
Charlotte Bronte visited the house in the 19th century and was so inspired by the house that she featured it as "Fieldhead" in her classic novel Shirley. (16)
|