Hathersage Hall

NOT many people can boast their home has connections with such iconic and legendary figures as Little John and Charlotte Bronte. 
In 1845, Charlotte Brontë stayed at the Hathersage vicarage, visiting her friend Ellen Nussey, whose brother was the vicar, while she was writing Jane Eyre. Many of the locations mentioned in her novel match locations in Hathersage, the name Eyre being that of a local gentry family. Her "Thornfield Hall" for example is widely accepted to be North Lees Hall situated on the outskirts of Hathersage.

Today, Hathersage Hall is a superb combination of the best of both worlds – a house of immense historic character possessing every modern amenity.

The reception hall alone is 17ft by 13ft with a stone-flagged floor and stone archway leading to an inner hall with a cast-iron fireplace set on a stone hearth and access to a wine cellar. The spacious drawing room has another gritstone fireplace as the focal point plus shuttered sash windows that look out over the grounds. The elegant dining room has a spectacular original Tudor ceiling, exposed floor boards and could seat a small army at the dining table.
The hothouse has raised borders with specimen botanical plants and climbers plus a central water feature with lilies and an original gritstone fireplace at one end.

The hall also has a second conservatory at the front housing more unusual specimens, including a fig tree, and has double doors opening on to the front terrace.

One of most used rooms in the house is the enormous breakfast kitchen which is a typical fusion of the old and the new. Features include a superb custom-made and hand-painted range of yew wall and base units, a granite central breakfasting island, a classic twin Belfast sink, a four-oven Aga and a range of upmarket appliances, while mullioned windows, built-in window seats, oak beams, stone flagged floor and a massive stone fireplace with the original gritstone surround all add character.

On the first floor, the master bedroom, with its original 17th-century Tudor ceiling, has sash windows and window seat with amazing views across to Stanage Edge. Its accompanying en suite has a double-ended bath as well as a shower cubicle.

Five other bedrooms and a games room are served by two luxurious bathrooms while on the second floor there are another four bedrooms, one with an en suite. 
Read more:thisisderbyshire

Event will focus on all elements of Bronteland experience

History, art and science will come together at a conference in Haworth to discuss aspects of Bronteland. Unbounded Moor is a symposium on landscape and literature organised by Worth Valley photographer and artist Simon Warner. The gathering on October 6 will be part of Ilkley Literature Festival, as well as being linked to the three-year Watershed Landscape project. The project, a wide-ranging programme of activities promoting the South Pennines, has enlisted Simon as its latest artist-in-residence. The keynote speaker at the symposium is poet Simon Armitage, whose poems were recently carved into stones at remote locations including Ilkley Moor. Other speakers will look at humanistic geography, walking and writing, new methods of mapping wilderness and the history of settlement on Haworth Moor. Artist Rebecca Chesney will describe her Bronte Weather Project, Hope’s Whisper, while painter and printmaker Carry Akroyd will document her work with the poetry of John Clare.

Tickets for the symposium cost £15 including lunch and admission to the Bronte Parsonage Museum. Contact jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk or 01535 640188.

Keighley News