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Tour of Shibden

The housebody

The house body is the central and original hall of Shibden. The principal pieces of furniture were built there and the stone-mullioned window installed in the sixteenth century. Of all the rooms at Shibden, this has been altered the most.

It was always the heart of the house: here meals were eaten, visitors received and business completed. But in the early nineteenth century Anne Lister opened the house to the roof, installed the imposing staircase and panelling and changed it to the Georgian interpretation of “Jacobethan” work.

Window

The splendid stone mullion, twenty-light window was installed by the Waterhouse family in the sixteenth century.

The central armorial glasses record the previous owners of the house - the black cross and crosslets of Otes; the comical owls of the Saviles; the black reversed pyramid of the Waterhouses.

Court Cupboard

At first glance this cupboard looks as if it may be a seventeenth century piece but it was in fact put together in the nineteenth century from various pieces of earlier furniture within the house. This sort of cupboard was used for keeping linen, wine and best candles, all expensive items, under lock and key and out of the reach of the servants.

Table

Made in Yorkshire of oak in about 1595 this magnificent table holds pride of place within the housebody. It was made wholly with hand tools and extends to about 5 metres (16 feet). It was assembled in the hall and is too big to get out of the house.

Originally the table would have been set up on a dais with the master of the house sitting centrally behind it and the family ranged on either side of him.

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