Famous Bronte spots

Good news for the St Michael and All Angels Haworth church:

One of the most visited churches in the UK – where the crypt contains the bodies of famous literary sisters Charlotte and Emily Brontë – has been gifted a £115,000 cash windfall.
The money from the Heritage Lottery pot will go towards financing the biggest refurbishment of St Michael and All Angels since it was re-built in 1879.
Also among the latest round of grants is St Peter’s Church in Birstall, where £199,000 will go to help finance roof and masonry repairs.
They come under the the lottery fund’s Repair Grants for Worship scheme.
The Haworth handout will help boost funding on a major repair project, which is expected to cost in the region of £1.4million when completed.
The Rector, the Reverend Peter Mayo-Smith, said it was good news for the parish, which saw about a million visitors a year coming to see the Brontë Parsonage Museum and the church where the sisters’ father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë, was the vicar in the mid-1800s.
The money, which would be match- funded by the church through fund-raising, was to pay for repairs to the roof and internal fabric of the church, he said.
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“The first phase is to explore the problem in the south roof, which is badly leaking. We occasionally have to have buckets out to catch the water. The north roof, which isn’t as bad, will be tackled later,” said Rev Mayo-Smith. (The Telegraph & Argus)
The roof is the most important thing to get right, then we can tackle work inside the church including restoring a wall painting.
“The aim is to make the church an asset to the community, so it can be used by people such as the Brontë Society and for concerts.
“It is also visited by many people because of the Brontës, so we want to improve the experience for people who come into the church.” (Keighley News)
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THE rain is coming in and the masonry is crumbling at some of the region’s most treasured places of worship as they battle the elements.
But hard-pressed congregations were offered a lifeline yesterday with the announcement that £2.3m has been set aside by heritage organisations to finance urgent repairs at 16 listed church buildings across Yorkshire and the Humber region. They include St Michael and All Angels, Haworth, known for its connections to the Brontë family. (...)
St Michael and All Angels Church, at Haworth, where the Rev Patrick Bronte was incumbent from 1820 to 1861 and where members of the family including Emily and Charlotte, are buried in a family vault adjacent to the present south east chapel, has been awarded £115,000.It will be used to help pay for reroofing the south nave, side aisle and tower.
The honorary treasurer at St Michael’s, Averil Kenyon, welcomed the news saying: “The church roof is leaking badly and that in turn is causing serious damage to the 19th century wall paintings inside.” (...)
The head of the Heritage Lottery Fund for Yorkshire and the Humber, Fiona Spiers, said last night: “Historic places of worship are one of our most treasured cultural assets. They occupy a unique position at the heart of communities up and down the country, and are a focus for so many civil and social activities in addition to their central purpose as a place for prayer and contemplation.” (Yorkshire Post)

How Haworth can move up in the world

From: John Collinson, Oldfield Lane, Oldfield, Keighley.

The Old School Room, Church Street. This building was originally constructed by Patrick Brontë in 1832 as the National Church Sunday School, and is of great historical importance to Haworth. The building, while being wind and watertight, requires major restoration and conservation works totalling £1m. This would create a building for public access that provides a stage and auditorium for shows and lectures, an area for exhibitions, meeting rooms for local groups and societies, an archive room, a Victorian school room together with associated facilities.

The provision of a wheelchair ramp from the Bradford Council car park to Church Street.This is desperately required, as I regularly speak to visitors who are dismayed at the lack of this provision which means that instead of travelling a few yards to Church Street they have to take a 300-yard detour. The estimated cost of this work is £30,000.
Surely these works are essential for the bid for world heritage status to be successful?
Taking the above two items into account, along with all the other issues, it is of no surprise that Haworth now finds itself on the English Heritage "at risk" register.
READ

Haworth and the Black Bull

Black Bull in winter

De stoel van Branwell Bronte in the Black Bull

Haworth, the home of the Bronte family, is almost as famous as Stratford-upon-Avon as a place for literary pilgrimage. The Revd Patrick Bronte brought his family to live in the parsonage at Haworth in 1820 and it is now kept as a museum. At the top of the steep and cobbled main street is the Black Bull, with its gritstone walls blackened by years of smoke pollution from the former tall chimneys of the local woollen mills. Branwell Bronte, the artistically frustrated brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne spent many hours drinking at the Black Bull and eventually, in 1845, his consumption of alcohol and opium killed him. Emily caught a chill at his funeral and died just 10 days later, not living to receive the acclaim to her novel 'Wuthering Heights'.

Today the Black Bull inside is a touristy open-plan pub with the focus on good value food but in Branwell's day it would have been divided into a series of small dark rooms. According to Mrs Gaskell, Branwell's great conversational talents: "procured him the undesirable distinction of having his company recommended by the landlord of the Black Bull to any chance traveller who might happen to feel solitary or dull over his liquor". Across the Main street is the Apothecary. It was the house of the pharmacist at the time of the Brontes, where Branwell Bronte bought laudanum, an opium derived drug

rose apothecary from Haworth

Uitzicht vanuit de voortuin van The Parsonage in Haworth

This is the schoolroom where all three of the Brontë sisters taught

Patrick Bronte was a passionate believer in educating children, particularly poor children.This no doubt came from his own impoverished background growing up in Ireland, the eldest of ten children. Through his own talent and sponsorship, he was able to rise from these humble beginnings to enter St John's Cambridge to study for the ministry.

Patrick and his family arrived in Haworth in 1820, determined to improve the lives of his parishioners. In 1831 he persuaded the Church Trustees to release a small parcel of land on Church Street for the building of a Sunday School. He then requested and was granted £80 from the National Society to contribute towards the building of the school. The Sunday School building was opened in the summer of 1832 The commemorative plaque over the door was composed by Patrick, and reads:

'This National Sunday School is under the management of trustees of whom the incumbent for the time being is one. It was erected AD1832 by Voluntary Subscription and by a grant from the National Society in London. Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. Prov. XII.6'

In 1843 Patrick secured a further grant from the National Society to enable a salaried master to teach at the school on weekdays. In 1843 the first of three extensions were built, the second in 1850-3, and the third in 1872. The later extensions are still extant and form the two gable ends opposite the Parsonage.

The building remained a school until it was replaced by a larger building in 1903, but still continues to serve the community for which it was built.

The Moors

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Top Withens




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Penzance en Maria Branwell.

Na de dood van haar vader werd Chapel street eigendom van haar broer Richard, de eigenaar van de Golden Lion Inn.
Het gezin van zijn broer mocht er blijven wonen, zelfs toen zijn schoonzuster een jaar later oerleed. De drie zussen bleven er wonen
(Maria 26 jr, Elisabeth 33 jr en Charlotte 18 jr). In 1812 overleed Richard. Charlotte trouwde haar neef, Richard's zoon Joseph en Maria verhuisde naar Yorkshire om bij een oom en tante te gaan wonen.
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The oldest part of Penzance is the quay. From here it extended up what is now Chapel Street which is rich in history and contains an eclectic mix of buildings and businesses. Most of the street dates back to the mid 18th century but there are a few reminders of the more distant past.

Just up from St Mary's is a small row of houses - what makes these unusual is they are constructed from bricks and not granite as most of the buildings in Penzance are. They were built in the late 18th century and referred to as Rotterdam Buildings as it is said they were built with money from Dutch prizes taken by a Penzance privateer. At the time brick was regarded as being of higher status than granite.

It is in one of these houses(no. 25)


that Maria Branwell lived - she was the mother of  Charlotte, Anne, Emily and Branwell Bronte. Chapel Street has the old inns, The Turks Head and the Admiral Benbow, it is also the street where Maria Branwell, the aunt of the Bronte sisters was born.


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In memory of Emily and Charlotte Bronte, The Moors

The Bluebell is the sweetest flower

That waves in summer air:

Its blossoms have the mightiest power

To soothe my spirit's care.

There is a spell in purple heath

Too wildly, sadly dear;

The violet has a fragrant breath,

But fragrance will not cheer,

The trees are bare, the sun is cold,

And seldom, seldom seen;

The heavens have lost their zone of gold,

And earth her robe of green.

And ice upon the glancing stream

Has cast its sombre shade;

And distant hills and valleys seem

In frozen mist arrayed.

The Bluebell cannot charm me now,

The heath has lost its bloom;

The violets in the glen below,

They yield no sweet perfume.

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But, though I mourn the sweet Bluebell,

'Tis better far away;

I know how fast my tears would swell

To see it smile to-day.

For, oh! when chill the sunbeams fall

Adown that dreary sky,

And gild yon dank and darkened wall

With transient brilliancy;

How do I weep, how do I pine

For the time of flowers to come,

And turn me from that fading shine,

To mourn the fields of home!

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