Bolling Hall

I mentioned Bolling Hall in passing yesterday and it just so happened that a friend and I recently had a drive over there. It's just a mile south of Bradford city centre. It's one of the oldest buildings in Bradford, originally being a medieval stone pele tower, a fortified defensive structure, common in the North and Scottish borders. (The stone tower can be seen on the left of the photo above.) The tower has been added to over the years as the property became a manor house, owned first by the Bolling family and later the Tempests. It's now in the care of Bradford Council, as a museum, and is used extensively for school visits.   

The surrounding gardens are small but attractive, with box hedging and an avenue of cherry trees that look amazing when in blossom. 

Inside it is furnished to give an idea of the different periods in the house's history. The upper room in the pele tower would have been the solar, the main living space for the owner. It's a soaring room, but simply decorated, with a large fireplace, wonderful beams and plain wooden furniture.  

There is a small exhibit showing the type of clothes a Norman yeoman like the first owner of the hall, William de Bolling, would have worn. The hall at that time would have been a wooden structure. The stone tower was built, I think, in the late 1300s. (On the table was an array of armoured helmets from different periods.)

Extensions were added to the hall in later years and the large central room was the 'housebody', warmed with a roaring fire in the big fireplace.  This was where the household came together to eat, chat, sew, play games and entertain visitors. 

One of the bedrooms upstairs is known as 'the ghost room'. It was here, in 1643 during the English Civil War, that the Earl of Newcastle is said to have slept, prior to leading his Royalist troops to attack the Parliamentarian sympathisers who had been holding out, besieged, in Bradford. A white lady is said to have appeared to him, asking him to 'pity poor Bradford', so that he rescinded orders to kill all the townspeople. 

The room has a magnificent fireplace and an ornate plasterwork ceiling, believed to have been added by the Tempest family in the 17th century. It's decorated with the Bradford symbol of a boar, red Lancastrian roses (the family were Lancastrian sympathisers during the Wars of the Roses - Lancaster v York - in the 15th century) and vines to signify wealth. 

The most recent addition to the hall was a wing added in the 18th century, designed by the architect John Carr (who was involved with the much grander Harewood House). The amazing red bed on display was originally made for Harewood House by the celebrated furniture maker, Thomas Chippendale.