Oakwood Hall

Oakwood Hall, Bingley, West Yorkshire is a 19th-century mansion with substantial interior fittings by the Victorian architect William Burges. The hall was constructed in 1864 by Knowles and Wilcox of Bradford for Thomas Garnett, a prosperous textile merchant. The style is "conventionally dour Gothic"Garnett had the interiors designed by Burges, who contributed a fireplace, and by William Morris and Co, for whom Edward Burne-Jones created the stained glass St.George in the staircase window, whilst Morris himself has been credited with the surrounding images of The Four Seasons.The Hall is a Grade II Listed Building as at 6 November 1973 and is now a hotel.The Garnett familyThomas Garnett who built Oakwood Hall in 1864 was born in 1832 in Otley. His father was Peter Garnett who owned the large Wharfeside Paper Mill in the town. In the 1850s he went into partnership with John Lawson Gillies to form the firm called Gillies Garnett and Co. They were cloth merchants and silk dyers. When Gillies died in 1879 Thomas became the sole owner of the company.In 1862 he married Fanny Riley who was the daughter of Joshua Healey Riley, a company owner in the textile business. Soon after he commissioned architects “Knowles and Wilcox” to build Oakwood Hall. William Morris and William Burges were employed for the interior fittings of his new family home. William Morris is attributed with the design of the stained glass windows at the top of the stairs on the first floor landing above the entrance. These show St George flanked by female figures of the Four Seasons as well as depicting Chaucer flanked by the heads of four female Chaucerian Heroines. These windows have been described as “some of the finest early stained glass by Morris and Co. that has yet been discovered.”