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Local HistoryYou are in: Bradford and West Yorkshire > History > Local History > Shibden Hall reveals all!  Digging up the past @ Shibden! Shibden Hall reveals all!Halifax's historic Shibden Hall may be over 300 years old, but that doesn't mean it can't still come up with a few surprises. In fact, the next time you visit there you might see things you've never seen before - both overground and underground! Restoration work's been going on at Shibden for some time now, first in the Hall itself and now in the gardens and grounds. The aim is to restore the picturesque landscape around the Hall to its former glories, much like it was when its best-known resident - the diarist and landowner Anne Lister - was living there in the 1830s. While inside the Hall is as calm and quiet as ever - just as visitors to Shibden over the years will remember - outside is a different story. But, though the gardens might seem like a building site just now, it's only a matter of time before the workmen and machinery will have gone and then staff at the Hall promise we'll have the chance to take a trip back in time!  Shibden: Where past and present meet! It's been a case of tunnel vision for some of those involved in the restoration work, with the re-opening of a dark old passageway running right under the terrace at one end of the gardens - something which many visitors will never have even guessed was there. There's no great mystery to this hidden passage, sadly, but its existence actually reveals a lot about the attitudes of the day. It was built purely to hide the sight of Shibden's gardeners and other staff from the Hall's better-off inhabitants! Deborah Comyn-Platt, Shibden Hall and Estate Manager, explains: "This is a raised terrace which was built for Anne Lister in the 1830s and within the terrace she wanted a gardeners' tunnel so that when the gardeners came back from the parkland she wouldn't actually see them on the terrace. They could walk through this tunnel and get round to the servants' quarters without being seen. It was done to hide the servants! The tunnel goes from the bastion in the corner of the terrace, along the inside of the terrace wall and it comes out just outside the servants' quarters." Clearly it was a case of out of sight and out of mind for the Hall's staff. And now this 'secret' passage has been re-opened, Deborah says it'll be the first chance that many visitors will have had to get another glimpse of how the other half lived at Shibden: "We did know the tunnel was there, but it's been closed-off for many years now. But before then, in many people's memories, they remember that tunnel being there. Some people have told us that they'd been in there when they were very young, some fifty years ago."  Digging the garden, Shibden-style! Though it's guaranteed that this newly-revealed hidden passage will attract a lot of interest, Deborah says she hopes that the other changes being made to the gardens and grounds at Shibden will also go down well with future visitors. She says they're hoping to give a really authentic impression of what the gardens were like there over 150 years ago: "When we first started taking away the layers of this lawn we could actually see the shapes of the flowerbeds that were laid out in the 1850s...Once the terrace has been repaired and the gardeners' tunnel is restored then we're going to re-lay the lawn with the 'Paisley Shawl' garden design that was created by [leading landscape designer] Joshua Major for a descendent of Anne Lister, Dr John Lister and his family, when he came to live here in the the 1850s."  Deborah: Looking forward to the past! Authenticity is the key, says Deborah, which is why this design will be the one which visitors to Shibden will enjoy for years to come: "It's a very intricate bedding design. The Victorians loved intricate bedding displays and lots of colour, influenced by all the plants that were coming into Britain from all over the world brought by plant hunters. They wanted to have a fairly intricate design in the lawn like Paisley material with swirls and shapes cut out of the lawn and then filled with bedding." Deborah goes on to explain that the design of the restored garden will also be based on some historic photographs: "Dr John Lister was one of the pioneers of photography so we've got lots of very early photographs of the house, garden and grounds." Work on the gardens at Shibden Hall should be finished by July 2008 when we'll get our first chance to see what it was really like all those years ago. With such attention to detail - and the chance to hide away in that hidden underground passage - it sounds like it'll be an experience to remember even for those people who've visited this historic Halifax house lots of times before!ΜύΜύ The restoration of Shibden Hall, its gardens, grounds and parkland, is being carried out by Calderdale Council with help from the Heritage Lottery Fund.last updated: 04/04/2008 at 10:10 You are in: Bradford and West Yorkshire > History > Local History > Shibden Hall reveals all!  |
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