If you want to visit the film locations for Gentleman Jack, here’s a good place to start. You can visit many of the locations, using Holdsworth House has your base, with our Gentleman Jack break.
Fans of Anne Lister will like our own House history and the connections our previous owner had to Lister and the Brontes.
Anne Lister
Gentleman Jack is the BBC/HBO dramatisation of the real story of Anne Lister – an 18th Century landowner, entrepreneur, diarist and lesbian. Lister lived at Shibden Hall in Halifax, just three miles from Holdsworth House. Click here to read more about Anne Lister. Screen writer Sally Wainwright kept the authenticity of the series by insisting that much of the show was filmed in Anne Lister’s former home.
Five Film Locations of Gentleman Jack to visit in Yorkshire
- Shibden Hall was the setting for most of the filming. Anne Lister’s former home is three miles from Holdsworth House. It now belongs to Calderdale Council and is open to the public as a museum. Visit to see the wood panelling, behind which Anne Lister’s diaries were hidden from the world for decades. The film crew took over the entire hall for months during 2018-2019, so that the actors and crew could fully immerse themselves in her surroundings. Shibden Hall is a lovely trip out and you can walk the landscaped grounds and parkland, which include a boating lake, children’s adventure playground, miniature ride-on railway and lovely cafe.
- Oakwell Hall in Birstall, West Yorkshire is an Elizabethan manor house that was used for filming (although it’s unlikely Lister herself visited this historic hall). Today it is a museum open to visitors and is set in many acres of grounds that are brilliant for dog walking. Oakwell Hall has links to the Bronte sisters too. It’s around 11 miles from Holdsworth House (30 minutes by car).
- Huddersfield: Queen Street was used for several street scenes thanks to its grand architecture. Huddersfield centre is 10 miles from Holdsworth House.
- The Little Germany area of Bradford (famous for its Neoclassical architecture) proved a good double for historic Halifax. It’s also featured in Downton Abbey and Peaky Blinders. Little Germany is around 7 miles from Holdsworth House.
- York: Several streets around York and Holy Trinity Church were used for filming. Holy Trinity Church is where Lister and Walker were ‘married’ before God. The private estate in York, Sutton Park, also doubled as Ann Walker’s original home in Halifax. York Minster Yard, Chapter House Street and Ogleforth, were used to film market scenes. York is 45 miles from Holdsworth House.
