Storytelling for Burns Night at Ordsall Hall
Gemma Gibb, Associate Editor
Head over to Salford’s gloriously welcoming Grade 1 listed Tudor manor house near The Quays this Sunday afternoon for some literary larks to mark Burns Night.
Cosy down in The Great Chamber, one of the oldest surviving examples of domestic living spaces that you can visit in the north, for some cracking Scottish stories and rhymes. Alongside classic Robert Burns poems and extracts from Macbeth (don’t worry – they are from the 1807 Tales from Shakespeare stories for children), expect enchanting mythical yarns of Selkies (who live as seals in the sea but turn into humans on land) and Kelpies (water spirits who appear as horses on land to entice people into the sea) alongside the more modern day tale of Hamish The Hairy Haggis (actually quite inspirational).
We love that the storytelling takes place in the room where the children of the Hall would have spent most of their time playing and learning together over 500 years ago. We love also the amazing history of this place which has been the residence of “medieval gentry, Tudor nobility, butchers, farmers, an Earl, an artist, mill workers, cows and several ghosts” since 1177. Most of all, we love the intriguing dynamic of this incredible building and heritage site against the modern cityscape.
