Thornfield Hall

Norton Conyers 

It was Clare Balding’s love of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre that took her to Norton Conyers in North Yorkshire, a manor house owned by the same family since the 17th century and long thought of as a likely inspiration for fictional Thornfield Hall, where Mr Rochester kept his mad wife Bertha confined in an attic. 

In 1839, Charlotte was unhappily employed as a governess to a family at Lothersdale, not far away, when she accompanied them on a day trip to view the historic house. ‘I think she’d have been enchanted by its atmosphere,’ Clare explains.
It is easy to imagine this place being Thornfield Hall.’ Maybe it was a loquacious housekeeper who showed the visitors around the house and told them the darkest family legend, the story of a madwoman restrained in the attic back in the 18th century. The present owners of the house are Sir James and Lady Graham. ‘She was known as Mad Mary,’ explains Lady Graham. ‘We don’t know if she was a servant or a member of the family. Anybody considered mad was hidden from view.’ 

It makes me feel terribly sad being here... it feels so much like a cell, with just a glimpse of the outside world through the window

It was an astonishing discovery at Norton Conyers in 2004 that seemingly supports the Grahams’ claim. A door was discovered behind some solid Edwardian panelling, giving access to a previously unknown staircase. It led to a cramped garret with a small gable window. Could this be the madwoman’s chamber? 

‘It makes me feel terribly sad being here,’ says Clare, ‘because it feels so much like a cell, with just a glimpse of the outside world through the window. We’ll never know for sure whether Charlotte Brontë came up here. But I can’t tell you how strange it feels, how eerie to be allowed to wander through these rooms and imagine the screams and the groans of a woman locked away. And to feel the spirit of Charlotte Brontë and, in a way, the ghost of Jane Eyre.’

Read more:Daily mail Attic-inspired-Jane-Eyre-priest-hole-saved-Charles-II.html

bronte blog i-could-wish-she-used-simpler-language.html

Read also adelphi paper hangings 

 with an interesting story about 
 Norton Conyers: 

"The wallpaper was found behind 18th century paneling in a cupboard next to the house maid’s room. We know that the house maid’s room was originally much larger and grander but part of it was done away with when the 1780s ceiling was created. We do not know if this was the original place for the wall paper or whether it had been used in the grander rooms downstairs. This room had wallpaper which was stuck onto canvas and held together by a wooden frame and we found evidence of a soft woolen-type fabric which would have given it a much softer look which we are told was French”.