Oakwell Hall has been used as a location for films and television for nearly a century. In 1921, a silent film of Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley was made at the Hall. It was directed by A. V. Bramble and starred Elizabeth Irving and Clive Brook, with many local people appearing as extras. 

Much later, Terry Deary, the creator of Horrible Histories, filmed Seven Wives, a children’s TV programme about Henry VIII’s turbulent marriages, at Oakwell Hall. The Hall has also appeared in adaptations of classic novels. Charlotte Riley and Burn Gorman played Cathy and Hindley in ITV’s version of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, filmed at the Hall. 

More recently, Oakwell Hall was featured on the BBC in Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, where it represented “Starecross Hall.”