My friend Ruthie (@igetspellbound on Insta) has been watching a rollicking BBC series about the fairly notorious early- eighteenth century lesbian called Anne Lister. As we were in the general area, she had suggested that we stop off and visit her house, Shibden Hall, in Halifax.
Lister, disparagingly called Aka ‘Gentleman Jack’, was known as a tall, strapping woman who dressed in masculine-style attire. She travelled widely and had affairs with several women including Ann Walker, with whom she entered into an informal marriage.
Lister recorded her amores in her diaries, which she began writing in 1806 and continued until her death in 1840. She wrote partly in code to conceal the true nature of her lesbian identity, her affairs and seduction techniques. This code was only cracked by Anne’s descendant John Lister (1847–1933) and his friend Arthur Burrell. Burrell was so scandalized by Lister’s accounts of her affairs that he advised Lister to destroy the diaries. Luckily for posterity he decided to hide them instead meaning that this first hand account of lesbian love and sex in the early 1800s survived.
Shibden Hall is one of those ancient manor houses that has been much-modified by its various owners over the years, but there’s a substantial amount still intact. Built in about 1420, it has a distinctive Tudor half-timbered frontage and dark wood-panelled interiors.
There were loads of original artefacts and furniture still in the house so it was a really interesting visit. The front windows of the main central room, the ‘Housebody’, of Shibden Hall, are leaded with small square, rectangular and diamond-shaped panes of glass. Interspersed with the plain glass, there are panes, or fragments, with images of strange beasts, flowers and foliage, and the crests and coats of arms of the Otes, Savile and Waterhouse families.
The coloured glass dates from several different periods and it is believed that at least some of it had been taken from dissolved priories and monasteries by the Waterhouse family, earlier owners of Shebden Hall.
Me and Ruthie were fascinated with the images in the glass. There are featured, among other things, some rather violent and heavily armed animals, a bird pushing a wheelbarrow, the devil playing pan-pipes and a weird bird/beast with hoofs for hands carrying a fish. Random.
I would definitely recommend a visit if you’re in the area.
moose and hobbes 