The Bronte birthplace inside

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Haworth

 From the Bronte blog:

The Telegraph and Argusdevotes its leading article to celebrating the fact that Haworth has been taken out of the Heritage at Risk register.

The supposed decline of Haworth was blamed on modern, jarring signage being put up on historic buildings, advertising boards cluttering the streets and older buildings falling into disrepair.
Now, thankfully, English Heritage has withdrawn Haworth from its at-risk register after a solid three years of efforts by the local community to improve the village.
Many old buildings have been returned to their original glory, there has been a clean-up of advertising signs and clutter, and a lot of work has been done to restore the stone setts on Main Street and spruce up the Bronte schoolroom attraction.
English Heritage, though, does warn that there is still plenty of work that needs to be done to bring Haworth up to the standard that the village truly deserves.
It is a salutary warning, and one which needs to be taken seriously, but at the same time it shouldn’t detract from the hard work that has been carried out to improve this historic village.
It is a prime example of a community working together with the local authority and other agencies to take pride in their environment and improve the village for both residents and visitors, and should be applauded.

And another article in the same newspaper focuses on the news as well.

Programmes that helped remove the village from the list include works to improve the Bronte schoolroom, a £622,887 programme to re-lay setts on Main Street, and returning several buildings to their original state.
The work has been carried out with help from organisations including English Heritage, Bradford Council and Haworth Parish Council.
The Council today announced they will review the Haworth Conservation Area, involving the community to develop a strategy to make sure the village never slides back on to the “at risk” list.
Haworth Parish Council vice-chairman Peter Hill said: “The fact that we’re not on the list any more is a move in the right direction towards Haworth being recognised as an iconic place to visit.
“And it’s important it’s understood that for Haworth to remain one of the leading tourist attractions in the north of England it must not suffer from over-development.”
Councillor Val Slater, executive member for planning at Bradford Council, said: “Haworth is one of Bradford’s gems and the local community is rightly very proud of it.
“We made a big investment in new setts to help improve the condition of the village and we are committed to working with local people to review the Conservation Area and to ensure people understand how they can play their part in keeping Haworth unique.”
Averil Kenyon, a member of Bronte Spirit, who worked to improve the Bronte Schoolroom, said: “Haworth does seem improved, but I think the schoolroom is still vulnerable.”
Bronte Society chairman Sally McDonald said: “That Haworth is to be taken off the at risk register is a credit to what has been achieved by English Heritage, everyone in the village and Bradford Council in recent years.”
Trevor Mitchell, regional director for planning at English Heritage visited Haworth in August, when he pleaded with businesses and local organisations to keep up the good work. After the announcement he said: “The turnaround was very quick, and I think that was because of the very active local community.
“Putting Haworth on the register was a necessary thing to do, at the time it looked like it was getting worse. Now it looks like it is getting better, and we’re optimistic it will keep getting better.
“It is good news the council have announced they will carry out a new conservation area appraisal, that will help decide what still needs to be done. We certainly think advertising signs is a big issue that needs dealing with.” (Chris Young)

The Yorkshire Post also mentions the news.

In Brontë footsteps

At the time Haworth was quite a prosperous place and, situated only a few miles from Keighley, was certainly not completely removed from society and culture. Haworth itself had a Philosophical Society, formed in 1780 and later a Mechanics Institute was established in the village offering a library, newsroom and lecture hall. Both Charlotte and Patrick Brontë were strong supporters of the Institute which moved in 1853 to new premises, now the Villette café in Main Street. “There was a lot going on,” says Christine. “There was the brass band, formed in 1854, and there were orchestral and choral concerts – the Messiah was performed in the church for the inauguration of the new organ. Most people in the village had multiple occupations, mostly connected with the textile industry. So you would have a farmer who was also a handloom weaver or an ironmonger who was also a yarn twister.”

A lot of the work was done in factories – the biggest in Haworth was Bridgehouse Mills in the valley below the village and features on the trail – but some of the processes, like woolcombing, could be carried out in people’s homes.

Another big industry in Haworth was beers, wines and spirits – reflected in the fact that for a relatively small place there were four inns.

“The industry was mostly in the hands of the Thomas family,” says Christine. “They had a lot of the property at the top of the village and owned and managed all four of the pubs. There is a small group of cottages – Gaugers Croft – which were known locally as ‘Brandy Row’ because the Thomases, who owned them, would give bottles of brandy to their tenants for Christmas.”

One of the sons, Enoch Thomas, was a drinking partner of Branwell’s and died of inflammation of the liver within a year of his friend. His widow went on to marry the local physician Dr John Wheelhouse who attended both Anne and Branwell in their last months (Emily refused to see him but he signed her death certificate) and about whom Branwell once wrote a scurrilous piece of doggerel, one of his last poems.

“In it he appears to be praising Wheelhouse but he is actually highlighting his faults,” says Christine. “The doctor had obviously upset him in some way – he had probably advised him to stop drinking.

Read more: yorkshirepost

kleurrijkbrontesisters/-enoch

I received this nice letter of someone who visited The Bronte Parsonage Museum.

I love your blog on the Brontes and wanted to write to let you know how much pleasure it has given me to browse through the immense amount of material you have collected.

I visited the Parsonage at Haworth for the first time last month and their story has haunted me ever since. My girlfriend  and I arrived there just after lunch on a typically overcast, dull and windy Yorkshire day. The house was just being 'invaded' by a large party of American and Japanese tourists but we were able to slip quietly in before them as they stood waiting for their guide outside. The house completely entranced me. To stand in the room where the sisters used to walk around the table and see the sofa where poor Emily breathed her last breath made me feel slightly giddy. 

We were particularly fascinated by Charlotte's tiny dresses, stockings and shoes and by the tiny handwriting. To learn that Branwell, Emily and Anne all died within such a very short space of time was a real shock to us. 

One can only imagine how their poor father, often unjustly labelled an uncaring tyrant, must have grieved for them all and how empty that big house must have felt with just himself and Charlotte living there for a while. 

Afterwards, we walked into the town for coffee and then, with the light beginning to fade, drove along the road and followed the signs to Top Withens. Unfortunately, with the weather closing in and the need to get back home to Buxton in Derbyshire, we had to cut our walk short. 

We could see the tree and the ruined cottage around half a mile distant. Frustrating! But we will be back. It was certainly lonely up there on the moors. Just ourselves, a blustery, dark and cloudy day and the huge expanse of the moors around us.

Picture Top Withens: pilgrimchris

Andrew Heaton, a descendant of the Heatons of Haworth

The Yorkshire Post tells the story of Andrew Heaton, a descendant of the Heatons of Haworth who has written a book, Never had a better, tracing his origins:

“My father was a well-respected sheepdog trial enthusiast and was also the first sheepdog trial winner of the new millennium when on January 1, 2000, high on the moors above Brontë country at Moor Lodge Farm, Oakworth he won the New Year’s Day trial with his dog Ben. Ironically I was to return to Brontë country many times in this past year as I uncovered stories that linked my family with both Emily and Patrick Brontë.” (...)
While Andrew has been able to find actual references and dates for over 500 years worth of Heaton family history, none is likely to capture the imagination more than a romantic entwinement with Robert Heaton of Ponden Hall and Emily Brontë. And there is enough conjecture for Andrew to mount an extremely plausible storyline.
The Heatons are inextricably linked with Haworth via the inscription on the bottom of the stained glass window in the Brontë chapel of Haworth Parish Church of St Michael and All Angels. It reads: “In memory of the Heatons of Ponden – Trustees of Haworth.”
While that proves very little, Andrew ventures further that the link between Ponden Hall, three miles west of Haworth, and Thrushcross Grange of Emily’s Wuthering Heights is feasible.
“In the 19th century, not many houses on the desolate moors surrounding Haworth could compare with Ponden. Like Thrushcross, the hall was attractive and well furnished and was inhabited by gentlemen of good standing, the educated Heaton brothers.”
When Emily was writing her book she often visited Ponden and he believes there is plenty of evidence to suggest that she and Robert were more than just friends.
“The plot of her novel concerns an inheritance and from what is known of the Heatons at the time, inheritance was what their 
life revolved around.
“The character of Heathcliff is based around a strange and sinister figure. At the time there was a man called Henry Casson who married into the Heaton family and tried to acquire her wealth.”
Copies of Andrew’s Never Had a Better can be obtained through visiting www.annbowes.co.uk

Old Age and the End of the World

Mrs. Tabitha Ratcliffe

This beautiful picture of Mrs. Tabitha Ratcliffe

I found on  facebook/Bronte-Parsonage-Museum

 

Mrs. Ratcliffe was the sister of the Brontës' servant, Martha Brown. In the Brontës' time, she 'used often to spend the evening with her sister at the Parsonage . . . as well as in the Sunday school, where she was taught by both Charlotte and Anne Brontë'. In the early 1900s, she was interviewed by one C. Holmes Cautley who wished her to recall all she could of the Brontë family. In the interview, she told Cautley 'I used to think Miss Anne looked the nicest and most serious like'. mick-armitage