Historic Redecoration

Yesterday, about two hundred (or was it more?) people crowded into the Old Schoolroom opposite the Parsonage to eat from a sumptuous buffet, drink wine and meet friends from the Brontë Society and interested members of the public. After brief speeches - from Sally McDonald, Chair of Brontë Society Council, Deputy Lord Lieutenant Terence Suthers and Professor Ann Sumner, the new Executive Director, the crowd split into groups to cross the narrow road and enter the Museum to see for themselves.

All of the refurbishments are historically accurate, the transformed Parsonage representing the culmination of two and a half years of painstaking analysis, using up-to-date forensic techniques. In summer, 2010, the University of Lincoln and historic design consultant Allyson McDermott were approached by the Parsonage to begin an analysis of the available evidence, with a view to coming up with a new, more historically accurate scheme of redecoration.

It was all there as we looked around, without some of the curtains, which will be coming soon to add the finishing touches.

 

To give a few examples, Mr Brontë's Study has been distempered in plain white, because no evidence could be found that it was ever papered, and the Dining Room now follows Charlotte's own decorative scheme from the early 1850s.

The curtains are still in the process of being specially woven, in crimson, to match Elizabeth Gaskell's description. According to forensic analysis, the room was papered both before and after Charlotte's 'gentrification', and the chosen paper is a contemporary design, in scarlet to match the curtains. Several years ago, a scrap of wallpaper was found in Branwell's Studio which can now be dated to the Brontë period. Allyson McDermott matched it with an almost identical sample - also contemporaneous with the Brontës' time - which was found inside a housemaid's cupboard at Kensington Palace. The wallpaper has been reproduced. bronte parsonage/historic-redecoration

Six-of-Charlottes-letters-to-Ellen-Nussey-come-home

A rare and important collection of six Charlotte Brontë letters is coming home to the Parsonage after the Brontë Society acquired them for £185,000 at Sotheby’s auction.
Previously in a private collection, the letters were written by Charlotte Brontë to her closest friend Ellen Nussey following their time as pupils at Miss Wooler’s school at Roe Head, near Mirfield from 1831.
The two corresponded regularly until Charlotte’s death in 1855 by which time Nussey had amassed a collection of upwards of 500 Brontë letters, many of which survived to support subsequent Brontë scholarship.
The first letter in the collection dates from October 18, 1832, shortly after their schooldays ended, and the final letter is written to Ellen’s sister on December 28 1854, just weeks before Charlotte’s death the following March.
Ellen Nussey lent around 350 of her letters (including the six acquired today) to Elizabeth Gaskell during her research for The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857). Mrs Gaskell quoted from them abundantly in the biography of her former friend, and they were also incorporated in a first-edition copy of her two-volume Brontë biography, close to the printed texts.
Ann Dinsdale, Collections Manager at the Parsonage, described them as “among the most significant Brontë letters to come to light in decades. They belong in Haworth,” she added, “and we are delighted that both scholars and members of the public will now have the opportunity to study and enjoy them, either here at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, or through our on-line resources.”
The society was able to acquire the letters thanks to support of £198,450 from the National Heritage Memorial Fund, the UK’s fund of last resort for saving the nation’s most important heritage at risk.
They will join a collection of correspondence and ephemera relating to Nussey already held at the Museum. For Brontë scholars, who will have access to the originals for the first time since Gaskell handled them, it will offer an invaluable opportunity to scan them closely and compare them to what are thought to be imperfect versions previously published.
The letters are now on display in Charlotte's Room, upstairs at the Parsonage. six-of-charlottes-letters-to-ellen-nussey-come-home

Knitting with the Brontes

In this month’s ‘Yarnwise’, I took a look at the knitting sticks in the collection of the Bronte Parsonage Museum, here in Yorkshire. And came to some interesting conclusions about the knitting sticks, and the Brontes’ experience of knitting. One conclusion I came to was that at least half of the sticks originated with Maria or Elizabeth Branwell (the sisters’ mother and aunt) in Cornwall.
The Museum were kind enough to give us permission to reproduce some absolutely iconic images, of the young Patrick Bronte and Maria Branwell, as well as great images of the knitting sticks themselves. Enjoy!

Coming up next month, a fascinating look into the knitters and hand-spinners from the 1790s-1830s in York’s “The Retreat for Persons Afflicted with Disorders of the Mind”, a trailblazing Quaker asylum. Patients indulged in some yarn therapy (as well as, in some cases, spectacular retail therapy). I went in search of their story, and tried to figure out just what on earth people were knitting around 1800!

It’s been a frantic month, locking down the text for ‘River Ganseys’ and completing the charts for the book as well as test knitting Dales gloves for a forthcoming Cooperative Press venture – so do look out for them, over the winter! The good news is, our wonderful test and sample knitters have reached the finishing line, with the ganseys for the book. I’m now busy knitting “something Victorian” for an article and pattern due out in the Spring. I realised the other day, apart from a hat for myself for this winter, and a couple of pairs of fingerless mitts for my teenagers, all my knitting for months on end has been 19thC reverse engineering! Blimey.

Photo by Belinda May, Dales Countryside Museum

Two of the sticks in the Bronte Parsonage’s collection, are similar to this one from the Dales Countryside Museum, in Hawes.
For more information about the Brontes and the Bronte Parsonage Museum, visit:
http://www.bronte.info/
theknittinggenie

The newly-restored Bronte Parsonage Museum, which re-opens today.

 

Some of the highlights of the new look museum include six personal letters written by Charlotte Bronte, bought by the society for £246,000 last year, displayed for the first time. thetelegraphandargus

Rebecca Fraser and Jane Sellars

(l-r) Bronte scholar Rebecca Fraser, with Chairman of the Trustees of the Bronte Society Sally MacDonald and Professor Ann Sumner.

 

 'The Art of the Brontes' author Jane Sellars. facebook 

New website

Most exciting news of the year as far as I'm concerned: our all-singing, all-dancing, beautiful new website goes live tomorrow on www.bronte.org.uk! From tomorrow you will be able to renew or take our membership, buy events tickets, purchase any one of hundreds of products in the shop, apply to research in the library, book for a group or educational visit - and keep fully up-to-date with all Museum events and news - all online. I'll be highlighting the best bits from the new site in the weeks to come. Look out for them. facebook./Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

Quite a lot of colour

"It's closer than it's ever looked to how it would have done in the Bronte period," said Bronte Parsonage Museum collections manager Ann Dinsdale.

"Charlotte put her stamp on the house, and there's quite a lot of colour."
Researchers from the University of Lincoln examined sections of the walls, and in some places found 18 layers of paint and wallpaper dating back to the sisters' habitation in the mid-19th Century.
"They came up with the strata, all the layers of paints that had been used over the years in the parsonage and they were able to work out which was the Bronte period," Mrs Dinsdale said.
"All the historic rooms, which are part of the original parsonage, have been completely redecorated." [...]
"I think people are possibly going to be quite surprised when they visit the parsonage," Mrs Dinsdale added.
"People have this image of [it] being quite austere with white and grey walls. Actually, it's very clear that they did experiment with colour."

Oh, we are so looking forward to seeing it! If you're in the area remember that the Museum opens tomorrow, February 9. From the Bronte blog

On this day in 1857

The manuscript of the "Life of Charlotte Bronte" by Elizabeth Gaskell was completed.

Catalogue of the Museum of Brontë Relics

Full text of "Catalogue of the Museum of Brontë Relics, the property of Mr. Robinson Brown late of Haworth, which will be sold by auction by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson & Hodge at their House .
archive.org

Amos Ingham, Charlotte Brontë’s doctor

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   Charlotte Brontë’s doctor, Amos Ingham, lived and worked in Ashmount Country House (01535 645 726,ashmounthaworth.co.uk), on Mytholmes Lane, a five-minute walk from the Parsonage. A Victorian villa with original stained-glass windows, commanding valley views. Bronte blog

Dr Ingham, built Ashmount House in 1870. He tended to Charlotte Brontë when she died in 1855 and her father, Patrick Brontë, six years later.



Dr Ingham was the Haworth surgeon from 1852, and the source of a story that Branwell accidentally set his bed alight after a drunken episode, resulting in him having to share his bed from then on with his father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë. Dr Ingham was in attendance at Charlotte's deathbed in 1855.

On the death of Patrick Brontë in 1861, the Brontë household was broken up, and Martha went with Arthur Bell Nicholls (Charlotte's widower) back to Northern Ireland. Whether this was just to help Mr. Nicholls settle in to his new home, or whether it was intended that she settle there as his housekeeper, we do not know, but by Christmas 1862, Martha was back in Haworth, living with her widowed mother at Sexton's house (John Brown had died of 'dust on his lungs' in 1855). Martha took domestic work in the village, including a stint with Dr. Amos Ingham (lately the Brontë family physician) at the Manor House in Cookgate. bronte.org.uk
kleurrijkbrontesisterson-this-day-in-1880-martha-brown.html

Most of the furniture is antique and much of the original interior of the house is still intact including our beautiful stained glass windows. haworth-village/accommodation

Can't wait to show you!

We're on a countdown till Saturday February 9 now, and our grand reopening with the exciting historically accurate refurbishment, and a few surprises in store! If you think you know the Museum you'll be astonished and delighted. Can't wait to show you! facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

Pictures of the Parsonage

 

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