Shibden Hall is one of those places round here that everyone has already been to. Plenty of people in Halifax were taken round the hall and the gardens as kids, long before anyone outside West Yorkshire had heard of it.
Then Gentleman Jack happened. The series told the story of Anne Lister, who lived at Shibden and kept the diaries there, and now people come from all over the world to see the house she wrote them in. It is a strange thing to watch happen to a place you grew up near.
"It is a museum, not a hotel. That is the one thing to get straight before you fall in love with it."
The VenueWhat Shibden Hall gives a photographer
- iThe hall across the sunken garden. Clipped topiary, a stone finial, and the black-and-white front of the house behind it. Stand at the far end and you get the building, the garden and the two of you in one frame, and it looks like nowhere else in Yorkshire.
- iiThe ceremony room. Timber framing, leaded mullioned windows, oil paintings in gilt frames and a chandelier over a patterned rug. The light through those windows is the good kind, and the register signing by the window is worth planning for.
- iiiThe Aisled Barn. An enormous timber frame over bare stone, with a stone arched doorway. Calderdale hire it out alongside the hall, and it is a completely different picture from the house: darker, bigger, and it holds a crowd.
- ivThe park. Big smooth-barked beeches on the paths behind. Ten minutes up there gets you the quiet frames the courtyard cannot give you.
The thing to plan around is that Shibden is run by Calderdale Museums rather than as a hotel. That is not a drawback, but it does mean your day is unlikely to happen in one place. The Ledgards used two locations, Shibden and The Old White Beare, and doing it that way is normal here rather than a compromise.
A Real Shibden DayMr & Mrs Ledgard
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The main room
The ceremony was in the main room of the hall, under the timbers and the paintings. She wore a beaded gown with cap sleeves and a pearl-beaded back; he wore an electric blue suit with a bow tie, which in a room that old is a decision I approve of.
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Signing by the window
Register signed at the wooden desk by the leaded window. That one is in black and white, because the light coming through that glass does not need any help from colour.
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Canapes in the stables
Out to the stables for canapes and champagne, where the two of them worked the room and said hello to everyone. A white classic car sat in the courtyard outside for the guests to gather round.
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The gardens and the trees
Then the sunken garden with the house behind, and up under the beeches for the quieter ones. Bouquets of white flowers with blue hydrangea running through them, and bridesmaids in slate blue against all that black and white timber.
"Sort your second venue first, then enjoy Shibden for what it is. No hotel in Yorkshire has a front like that one."
PricingA full day at Shibden Hall
A full day of Shibden Hall wedding photography starts from £1,800, with no travel charge anywhere in Yorkshire, and that covers the move to your second venue. The pricing page has what's included and the shorter options.
LocationsWhere the day happened
The Ledgards' day used two locations: Shibden Hall, Halifax, run by Calderdale Museums, and The Old White Beare. The Ledgards' other suppliers weren't recorded at the time, so the list stops where I can stand behind it.
