Oakwood Hall,
Bingley
Bingley is a market town and civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England, on the River Aire and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which had a population of 18,294 at the 2011 Census.
Bingley railwa ...
,
West Yorkshire
West Yorkshire is a metropolitan and ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. It is an inland and upland county having eastward-draining valleys while taking in the moors of the Pennines. West Yorkshire came into exi ...
, England is a 19th-century mansion with interior fittings by the
Victorian architect William Burges
William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...
. The hall was constructed in 1864 by Knowles and Wilcox of Bradford for Thomas Garnett, a prosperous textile merchant. The style is "conventionally dour Gothic".
Garnett had the interiors designed by Burges, who contributed a fireplace, and by
Morris & Co., for whom
Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
created the stained glass St. George in the staircase window, whilst Morris himself has been credited with the surrounding images of The Four Seasons.
The Hall is a
Grade II
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
Listed Building as at 6 November 1973 and is now a hotel.
History
![Thomas Garnett Oakwood Hall](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f3/Thomas_Garnett_Oakwood_Hall.jpg)
Thomas Garnett (1833–1916) who built Oakwood Hall in 1864 was born in 1832 in
Otley
Otley is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish at a bridging point on the River Wharfe, in the City of Leeds metropolitan borough in West Yorkshire, England. Historic counties of England, Historically a part of the West Ridi ...
. His father was Peter Garnett who owned the Wharfeside Paper Mill in the town. In the 1850s he went into partnership with John Lawson Gillies to form the firm called Gillies Garnett and Co. They were cloth merchants and silk dyers. When Gillies died in 1879 Thomas became the sole owner of the company.
In 1862 he married Fanny Riley (1843–1916) and shortly after commissioned Knowles and Wilcox to build Oakwood Hall.
William Morris
William Morris (24 March 1834 – 3 October 1896) was a British textile designer, poet, artist, novelist, architectural conservationist, printer, translator and socialist activist associated with the British Arts and Crafts Movement. He ...
and
William Burges
William Burges (; 2 December 1827 – 20 April 1881) was an English architect and designer. Among the greatest of the Victorian art-architects, he sought in his work to escape from both nineteenth-century industrialisation and the Neoc ...
were employed for the interior fittings of his new home. William Morris is credited with the design of the stained glass windows at the top of the stairs. These show St George flanked by female figures of the Four Seasons as well as depicting
Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer (; – 25 October 1400) was an English poet, author, and civil servant best known for '' The Canterbury Tales''. He has been called the "father of English literature", or, alternatively, the "father of English poetry". He w ...
flanked by the heads of four female Chaucerian heroines. These windows have been described as “some of the finest early stained glass by Morris and Co. that has yet been discovered.”
The couple had six children. Thomas continued to manage his textile firm until about 1900. He also became a Director of the Bradford Banking Company and of the
Hull and Barnsley Railway
Hull may refer to:
Structures
* Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle
* Fuselage, of an aircraft
* Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds
* Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship
* Submarine hull
Mathematics
* Affine hull, in a ...
Company. His wife Fanny died 30 March 1916 and only a few days after her burial Thomas died. Their youngest son Harold Addison Garnett lived in the house for several years and then in about 1920 it was sold to the Hanson family.
![Sale notice Oakwood Hall 1952](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Sale_notice_Oakwood_Hall_1952.jpg)
Jonas Hanson (1869–1951) bought Oakwood Hall in about 1920. Hanson progressed from the status of weaving overlocker, as described in the 1891 census, to founding one of the largest cloth companies in Bradford called Parkland Manufacturing Company which continues to operate.
He was born in 1869 in
Silsden
Silsden is a town and civil parish in the City of Bradford in West Yorkshire, England, on the River Aire and Leeds and Liverpool Canal between Keighley and Skipton, which had a population of 8,268 at the 2011 Census. The parish includes the haml ...
,
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a Historic counties of England, historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other Eng ...
. His father Joshua Smith Hanson was a canal worker. In 1897 he married Sarah Jane Kay and the couple had three sons. He was a keen gardener and became President of the Bingley and District Allotment Association. He was also President of the Bingley Building Society for many years and of the Keighley Golf Club. He was President of the Shipley Division of the Conservative Club and held numerous garden parties for the Club at Oakwood Hall.
He died in 1951 at the age of 82 and in the following year his sons sold Oakwood to the Woods, a Bradford textile family. The hall now operates as a hotel.
See also
*
Listed buildings in Bingley
Bingley is a civil parish in the metropolitan borough of the City of Bradford, West Yorkshire, England. It contains 102 listed buildings that are recorded in the National Heritage List for England. Of these, one is listed at Grade I, th ...
Notes
References
* Pevsner, Nikolaus and Radcliffe, Enid, ''The Buildings of England: Yorkshire, West Riding'' (1967) Penguin Books
* Mordaunt-Crook, J ''William Burges and the High Victorian Dream'' (1981) John Murray
{{Bradford
Country houses in West Yorkshire
Hotels in West Yorkshire
Grade II listed buildings in West Yorkshire
Houses completed in 1864
Buildings and structures in Bingley
Grade II listed houses
William Burges buildings
Gothic Revival architecture in West Yorkshire
Country house hotels