Bolling Hall Museum: A Medieval Manor House and Royalist Base
Site at a Glance
- Popularity
- High
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Primary era
- Medieval
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- English
- Site type
- Domestic
- Remains
- Manor House
On this page5 sections
History
Bolling Hall Museum is a medieval manorial house in Bradford, United Kingdom, with an earliest building phase dating to the fourteenth century. It served as a Royalist base during the town’s capture in 1643, during the English Civil War.
The manor and its owners
The Manor of Bolling, also known as Bollinc, appears in the Domesday Book, a late eleventh-century survey of English land and property made for William I. It then belonged to Sindi before coming under the control of Ilbert de Lacy, a Norman landholder.
By 1316, William Bolling owned the manor. The Bolling family held the estate until the late fifteenth century, when it passed to the Tempest family, who retained it until 1649. The property later changed hands several times and was leased to successive tenants. In 1912, it was presented to Bradford Corporation, the town’s municipal governing body.
War, chapel, and later alterations
In 1643, during the second siege of Bradford, Bolling Hall served as a Royalist base. The English Civil War was fought between supporters of King Charles I, known as Royalists, and supporters of Parliament, known as Parliamentarians. Bradford strongly supported Parliament, but Royalist forces captured the town. The prospect that the victors would put its inhabitants to the sword was feared.
The hall’s owners founded the Bolling chapel at Bradford parish church, now Bradford Cathedral. The Tempest family restored it in the seventeenth century, but it was lost when the church’s eastern end was rebuilt in the twentieth century. After a fire, parts of the hall were modernized in the eighteenth century.
Museum and heritage status
Bradford Corporation opened the hall as a museum in 1915. It is now a museum and education centre owned by the City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council and part of Bradford Museums and Galleries. In 1952, it was designated a Grade I listed building, a category for buildings of exceptional architectural or historic importance.
Remains
Bolling Hall stands on a commanding hillside in East Bowling, about 1.6 km from central Bradford, amid suburban surroundings. Bradford lies in a basin that was difficult to defend, while the hall occupies the hillside above it.
The earliest part of the house has been interpreted as a peel tower, a fortified tower house associated especially with areas exposed to cross-border raiding. Bradford lies somewhat beyond the usual geographical range of this type of building.
The museum displays material relating to the English Civil War, including a death mask of Oliver Cromwell, a Parliamentarian military and political leader.
