Kirklees Hall, Yorkshire, England. Further historical information.

KIRKLEES HALL

KIRKLEES HALL, (the seat of Sir George Armitage, Bart.) in the township of Hartishead with Clifton, and parish of Dewsbury, Agbrigg-division of Agbrigg and Morley, liberty of Wakefield, 4½ miles N. of Huddersfield, 6 from Halifax, 12 from Leeds.

This place is memorable, on account of a Nunnery founded here in the reign of Henry II. for Benedictine Nuns. After the dissolution, the site and demesnes about the house, were granted to the Ramsdens. In the 1st of Elizabeth, it became the property of the Pilkintons, and in the 8th of the same reign, was alienated by Robert Pilkinton to John Armitage, and in this family it has continued to the present day. The site of the Priory appears to have been inhabited by the family during the rest of Elizabeth's reign, and an uncertain portion of that of King James, when, as appears from his arms in the hall, they removed to their present more airy and conspicuous situation.

The situation of this Nunnery was in a warm and fertile bottom, on the verge of a deep brook to the south, and on an elevation just sufficient to protect the house from inundations. A square depression in the ground distinctly marks the cloister court, nearly thirty yards square. North of this was the body of the Church, and eighteen yards or thereabouts, to the east, are the tombs of Elizabeth de Stainton, and another protected by iron rails, immediately eastward from which, the choir has evidently terminated. The nave, transept, and choir, must have been at least 150 feet long.

Kirklees is also famous for being the sepulture of the renowned Robin Hood, an out law and free booter, who lived in the beginning of the thirteenth century, and who, according to tradition, was suffered to bleed to death by one of the Nuns, to whom he had applied to be bled. The spot pointed out for the place of his interment, is beyond the precinct of the Nunnery, and therefore not in consecrated ground. --Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete.

The following inscription over his remains, preserved by Dr. Gale, Dean of York, Thoresby says, was "scarce legible," and Dr. Whitaker seems to think spurious.

                      "Hear, undernead dis latil stean,
                      Laiz Robert, Earl of Huntington;
                      Nea arcir vir as him sa geud,
                      An pipl kauld him Robin Heud;
                      Sick utlawz as hi, an iz men,
                      Vil Inglande nivr si agen:
                      Obit. 24.  Kal Dekembris, 1247."
 

A statue of this renowned free booter, large as life, leaning on his unbent bow, with a quiver of arrows and a sword by his side, formerly stood on one side of the entrance into the old hall.