Birthplace of Charlotte, (Patrick) Branwell, Emily Jane and Anne Bronte in Thornton.

This week I received an e-mail from Jar Bancroft, he is the maker of bancrofts from yorkshire.blog

Earlier I found his weblog and loved it very much. Interesting articles about the history of Yorkshire and the Bancroft family. In my weblog I posted allready an article I took over from Jar. Benjamin Babbage Report
He wrote to me that his great grandparents were living in the house in Thornton were Branwell, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte were born.

Today I received an article from him, that tells  more about the Bronte birthday house.

Thank you very much, Jar, for your kindness to mail to me. And I appreciate it  so much that you, who are living so near to the place where this weblog is telling about, make the effort to write to me.  If there are other people who can tell me stories about the Brontes, please, don' t hesitate.
 

It's very difficult to miss the plaque pointing out that this really is the birthplace of Charlotte, (Patrick) Branwell, Emily Jane and Anne Bronte. For a number of years the house has been owned by novelist Barbara Whitehead who has not only restored many of the house's original features but has been more than happy to open it to the public by arrangement. Now Barbara is retiring and has to sell the house. The Grade II listed building will be auctioned at Elland Road football stadium, the home of Leeds United, on Monday June 25th, 2007.

The property has four bedrooms and three staircases! A stone above the front door suggests the house was built in 1802. When Patrick Bronte moved here as Curate to St James' Church, Thornton, in 1815, he was accompanied by his wife Maria and their two little girls. While Maria and Elizabeth were not to survive into adulthood the Bronte children born here grew up to take the literary world by storm.

Barbara Whitehead says on her website: "People sometimes wonder why the birthplaces of famous people are so important. Charlotte, Emily and Anne were small children here; it was not the place where they wrote their books. But the first years of life are very formative and this was a family home with their mother and their two elder sisters still living, the house where little Charlotte stood watching her mother playing with baby Branwell on the rug."

Angela takes us into what would have been the Parlour: "This is where they took tea with the Firth family from Kipping House and of course they went down to Kipping House quite a lot. In fact they had a lovely friendship with the Firth family." In the 1830s Patrick Bronte wrote a letter to one of the Firths. Angela says: "He came back in 1835 and he looked around Thornton and he looked at all the places that he loved and the old friends that he knew and in this letter he said, 'I've never quite been well since I left Thornton. My happiest days were spent there'. I think that says a lot."
 

The heart of the house would have been the dining room and it's also where the Bronte children were born. Continuing on through the back kitchen we reach an old stone staircase which goes up to the maids' room: "Sarah and Nancy Garrs came from the School of Industry in Bradford and Nancy was 13 when she had the job and she was their housemaid and I suppose you'd call it a children's nanny these days. They slept in here and this leads directly into what was the nursery."

Angela points out a bathroom which in the Bronte's day was a dressing room: "When Aunt Branwell came to stay she stayed in there because the house was quite full." Just along the passageway is what would have been the Reverend and Mrs Bronte's bedroom. "There was nothing opposite except a sweep of green fields going down and then climbing up to Clayton Heights so they'd get a lovely view of those lush green fields around Thornton which you still see through little walkways and ginnels."

If you want to read the complete article click here