Binns' Drawings: Rookes and Lower Rookes Halls, Norwood Green

Drawings by Thomas Binns of Rookes and Lower Rookes Halls, Norwood Green, Halifax, West Yorkshire.

Drawings by Thomas Binns, local artist of the 19th century who published a popular set of "Reproductions of Pencil Drawings" in 1841-1846, much reproduced thereafter.

p1: " 'Rooks' [or Upper Rookes Hall], Hipperholme, near Halifax. Drawn in 1848."

Though there may have been a building on the site since the 13th century, the present house was built in 1589 by a John Waterhouse, who married into the Rookes family (the initials JW and the date are over the door). Over the next few hundred years, Ramsdens and then Walkers lived here. The Walkers of Crow Nest, Lightcliffe, made a fortune from the sale of minerals and their Low Moor Iron Company in the 1700s. Restored and remodelled in 1929, this Tudor yeoman house retains its original late 16th century front exterior and is a Grade II listed building.

p2: " 'Lower Rooks' [or Rookes Hall], Hipperholme, near Halifax. Drawn in 1846."

The hall takes its name from the Rookes or Rokis family, records of which go back to 1187. The existence of a house here is implied in the 1275 Court Rolls of the Manor of Wakefield. After the Rookes, the Brighouse and Saltonstall families lived here. A date on the stone sundial on the porch of the house shows 1638, when the old timbered house was rebuilt or encased by John Whitley of Sowood House, Coley. Other notable families to have lived here were the Sunderlands (of Mrs Sunderland music competition fame) and the Tolsons of Huddersfield (Tolson Museum). The windows on the front have been considerably altered since the drawing of 1846. The hall is a Grade II listed building.

Pages taken from "The Yorkshire Coiners 1767-1783. And Notes on Old and Prehistoric Halifax" by H. Ling Roth, Honorary Curator of Bankfield Museum, Halifax. Published in Halifax in 1906 by F. King & Sons, Ltd.

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