Oakwell Hall

We have lived in Yorkshire most of our lives and we felt it was fitting to create a series of posts dedicated to 'things to do in Yorkshire', and this is the first! Oakwell Hall is an Elizabethan manor house in Birstall, Leeds and we've been coming here on various days out and school trips for years. 

We usually take a picnic as there are many cute places to sit and eat, as well as lots of nature trails and walks!

The surrounding park is lovely to wander around and despite visiting for years we still managed to stumble upon new areas

Oakwell Hall also has a variety of wildlife and especially pondlife to see. We both have memories from being children of seeing tadpoles and spotting leeches and insects skating across the ponds!

One of our favourite things about Oakwell Hall is the tale of their resident ghost. Rumour has it, in 1684 the owner of the house, William Blatt, took a trip to London on a cold December morning. That evening, his family hear the door burst open and see William running past them and up the stairs. Confused as he was supposed to be away for several days, his family followed him to his chamber. However when they reached the room, William was nowhere to be found, the only trace he had been there was a single, bloody footprint left on the floor. The family discovered the next day that William had been killed in a duel the day before when they had seen him run up the stairs! The tale goes that no matter how hard the maids scrubbed the floor, they couldn't remove the footprint, so Blatt's wife locked away the floorboard with the footprint out of sight in the house and is still rumoured to be hidden in the house...

The gardens are lovely to take a stroll around, they're full of wild flowers and honey bees! You can really appreciate the grandeur of the house from this side!

For some reason there's a stone ram at the front of the house, we have obligatory majestic photos every time.

If you're not a fan of a packed lunch there is a cafe and an ice-cream van to enjoy and take a break at!

A trip to Oakwell is always a fun day out, you can also take a tour of the house if you want to see pretty much the same environment described in Charlotte Bronte's Shirley plus there's a really good play area for kids that we looked on with serious envy!

We visit pretty much annually in the summer and enjoy our day every time!