Red House still looks very much as it would have in Charlotte's day. Each of the rooms brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its Yorkshire range, jelly moulds and colourful crockery.

Bronteblog/red-house-combining-bronte-history

The Red House story is beginning to reach local papers. The Spenborough Guardian reports many locals are against the closure:

Red House – ‘a cultural and educational gem’ – could be lost forever under council plans to sell it off.

Kirklees says closing the award-winning Gomersal museum and moving its exhibits to other museums would save £116,000 over two years.

However the plans have caused anger with critics saying it is yet another example of north Kirklees making the biggest sacrifices.

MP Mike Wood said: “We knew Kirklees was considering reducing the opening hours, and that was bad enough, but to hear they want to close it altogether was a bombshell.

“Red House is a credit to our area, and we cannot sacrifice it in a forlorn attempt to save money at all costs. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. [...]”

Gomersal councillor Lisa Holmes, said she and her Tory ward colleagues would do their utmost to fight the plans.

“It’s an absolute shame,” she said. “I have spoken to the staff who are devastated, not just for their jobs but because they know the vital service it provides. We realise we have massive savings to make, but we will do whatever we can to find an alternative to closure. There is a big challenge ahead of us but we must protect our heritage.”

Vice-chairman of Spen Valley Civic Society Gordon North said: “People cherish Red House and I am sure they will be as disgusted as we are that the one museum in the Spen Valley could go.

“It attracts local, national and international visitors, and it’s not just because of its Brontë links. The Taylor family was incredibly important in the story of the Spen Valley – Mr Taylor was one of the first woollen manufacturers and opened the Bank of Gomersal, while his daughter Mary Taylor was at the forefront of the feminist and equality movements – and you might think that a Labour council might recognise that.”

Red House was bought by the old Spenborough Council in 1969 to be opened as a museum telling the story of the Spen Valley.

Former Spenborough councillor Michael McGowan, who went on to become an MEP, said only last year he had taken a group of visitors from New Zealand to Red House, because of Mary Taylor’s links with their country.

“It’s a fantastic resource, a cultural and educational gem, and we mustn’t lose it,” he said.

The move has also been condemned by Carol Brontë, who first visited Red House as curator of the Brontë Museum in Northern Ireland. Her husband, James Wallace Brontë, is the great-great-grandson of the Rev Patrick Brontë’s youngest brother.

“I’m absolutely devastated,” she said. “Why close this famous tourist destination? It’s a very special place and I would urge Kirklees to think again.”

Brontë Society trustee Stephen Whitehead said: “The Taylor family was so important to Charlotte that she featured them as the Yorkes in Shirley and Briarmains is an exact description of Red House. It is an irreplaceable asset and this is not the way to manage your heritage.”

President of Cleckheaton Rotary Club Bill Stevenson said they had great concerns about the length of time for objections – February 7 – and urged the public to attend Tuesday’s Spen Valley area committee meeting to air their views.

The meeting is at 7pm at the town hall, Cleckheaton.

A spokeswoman for Kirklees said difficult decisions had to be made.

“The proposal to close Red House Museum is one of a large number of measures up for consideration which have been proposed to fill a very big gap in the council’s budget and reduce expenditure,” she said.

No decision has been made yet and people are invited to make their views know by contactingcommunication@kirklees.gov.uk or Communities and Leisure, Museums and Galleries, The Stables, Ravensknowle Park, Wakefield Road, Dalton, Huddersfield, HD5 8DJ. (Margaret Heward)

The Telegraph and Argus looks at it from a Brontë point of view:

The director of the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth has condemned proposals to close a popular museum with strong connections to the famous literary family.
The future of Red House Museum, Gomersal, will be discussed at Kirklees Council’s Cabinet meeting on February 7 as part of budget talks.
But parsonage director Andrew McCarthy said: “We appreciate the challenges faced by local authorities in terms of balancing the budgets at the moment but it does seem a pretty drastic step that can be made in haste and repented at leisure.” [...]
It is said ‘Briarmains’ – the house Charlotte wrote about in her second novel, Shirley – was based on Red House and some of the characters were thought to have been inspired by the Taylor family.
Mr McCarthy said: “The Taylor family as merchants, bankers and mill-owners did a huge amount to shape that part of the West Riding and they are a great part of the heritage of the area and there is this very strong link with the Brontës, particularly Charlotte.
“She stayed there on many occasions in the 1830s as a guest of her close friends Mary and Martha Taylor.
“There are very few buildings which combine Brontë history and Brontë fiction in the way Red House does. It would be a huge loss.” (Sally Clifford)

Please keep letters/email coming to local authorities (see list in this post) and if you haven't yet, do sign this online petition. And spread the word too!