This is the actual desk over which the Bronte Sisters passed their manuscripts.

Reflection of its former self.

Haworth Main street post office reflected in the window across the street of what was the original post office in the time of the Brontës ...and this is the actual desk over which their manuscripts passed !

I found this photographe on Wuthering Hikes

Thank you for the permission!

Neighbours of the Brontes.

Read all of this interesting article of Nick Holland on: Anne Bronte

Looking further around Haworth we find hundreds of other names, some of them familiar to Brontë fans and some ghosts from the past: John Feather, manufacturer; William Garnett, innkeeper; James Hudson, shoe maker; Thomas Parker, overlooker of power loom; Joseph Mosley, clock maker; Zilla Wright, worsted maker; Ellis Hird, wool comber; John Winterbottom, Baptist minister; Tabitha Aykroyd (staying with her sister Susanna Wood and listed as ‘independent’, and incidentally one of three unrelated ‘Tabitha Aykroyd’s living in Haworth at that time); William Wood, joiner and cabinet maker (and also the nephew of Tabby and the coffin maker who commented on how thin Emily Brontë’s coffin was); Enoch Thomas, innkeeper of the King’s Arms (friend of Branwell, and also at one time innkeeper of the Black Bull); Mary Whitaker, pauper. These are people who would have come into contact with the Brontës regularly, whether at the church or whilst walking through the streets, but of course they would little have guessed at their hidden talents, and could never imagine how they would put their village on the map for ever.

The shops that we see on Haworth Main Street today were at the time mainly housing, although there were stores such as Barraclough’s ironmongers and Hartley’s grocery. When looking through the census the thing that strikes us is how many of the residents are employed in the wool industry, either as worsted makers, combers, weavers or bobbin makers. These people lived mainly in an area called Piccadilly, or the Pick, and it rapidly became an unhealthy slum with large families living in one room that was always kept warm to aid the wool combing process. The tightly packed houses of the 1840s  that made up the Pick are gone now and have been replaced by modern housing and a new health centre. Even so, you can see where it stood by looking through the archway that lies across from the Black Bull Inn known as gauger’s croft.

John Feather

boards.ancestry/John Feather.  John was a worsted manufacturer in Keighley and employed at least 20 workers.

William Garnett

oldwhitelionhotel William Garnett bought the White Lion in the 1820s and ran it for about twenty years. He died in 1859 after a long retirement and is buried in St. Michael’s churchyard nearby

Greenwood

Effectively the family of Joseph Greenwood (1786–1856), second son of James Greenwood Sr of Bridgehouse, who acquired, or perhaps was given, Springhead Mill when quite young. Though he did not remain in the cotton trade long, letting the mill from 1822 onwards, he remained a strong force in Haworth until the early 1850s, and one that usually worked contrary to the interests of his own brothers. He became an Anglican, a church land trustee, and a Tory, and was thus a natural supporter of Patrick Brontë on most, but not all, issues (he supported Richard Butterfield’s petition to annul elections to the local Board of Health, a move that was a grievous set-back to the cause of sanitary reform). Patrick went to great lengths in the mid-1830s to have him made a magistrate, eventually succeeding in June 1836. The basis of Joseph Greenwood’s local power was land and presumably rent from his mill, which was let to the Merralls. In 1853 he and his sons went bankrupt, and he moved to Utley, near Keighley. Branwell mentioned the elder son disrespectfully in a letter to John Brown in 1840, calling William Greenwood “Prince William at Springhead” (described as “fat”) and ridiculing his “godly” friend Parson Winterbottom, minister of the West Lane (not the Hall Green of the other Greenwoods) Baptist Church at that time, suggesting William may have reverted to a branch of the family’s old faith.  blackwellreference

Historic photographes Haworth.

facebook/Jack Hargreaves.

 

Bottom of Main Street Haworth c1890- 1900

Beautiful view on the Church. Not many trees in that time.

 

c1910-20 pre Park

 

 

1905 picture of Haworth and Black Bull

Mick Walpole‎ I love Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage

  

Old Haworth

On Facebook Sandra Brailsford posted this photo of old Haworth

Old Haworth

Jack Hargreaves‎Haworth and the Brontes

 

Belle Isle Haworth.
 

 

 

Bridgehouse Lane Haworth.

 

Main street and Black Bull 1926

facebook/ Mick Walpole

HAWORTH Old Hall.

 

First published Thursday 18 December 2014 in Memory Lane by Alistair Shand                

HAWORTH Old Hall, one of the village's oldest surviving buildings, is seen here in its more mundane guise as a farm. It is sometimes called Emmot Hall, having been bought in the 18th century by the Emmot family from over the Lancashire border, who however never lived in it but rented it out. In 1884 oatbread baker James Greenwood was living there. The hall's history remains obscure. "It is as though a sponge has been drawn across the records of Haworth Old Hall," comments an earlier local guide, "leaving its story empty." The poster on the wooden hut on the left is advertising a sale of quarry plant – a reminder of one of Haworth's former industries. keighleynews

brontesisters/haworth-old-hall

Bronte museum's first home

By Alistair Shand .
THE Bronte Society, founded in 1893, housed its first museum on the upper floor of this prominent building at the top of Haworth Main Street, formerly the Yorkshire Penny Bank and now the Tourist Information Centre, before moving into the Parsonage in 1928.

The building at the top of Haworth Main Street where the Bronte Society housed its first museum. From 1889 there had been a privately-run Museum of Bronte Relics at Brown's Temperance Hotel and Refreshment Rooms in Main Street, an enterprise which also catered for picnic parties and sold Haworth views. Bronte tourism was getting into its stride by then, with hyperbolic touting of "the wildest and bleakest moors of Yorkshire" and a little village "consisting of a church and a few grey stone cottages", although one guide of 1899 more realistically called Haworth "an ever-expanding colony bisected by a railway". Advertisers played on the Brontes. The Black Bull Hotel was "close to the church and Bronte Museum", the King's Arms "opposite Bronte Museum and church" and the White Lion "next door to Bronte Museum". Notice, on the left side of the antique shop, the sign pointing towards Colne – a reminder of the narrow corners the traffic negotiated before the opening of the Main Street by-pass in 1974. The photograph has been supplied by Mr Kevin Seaton, of Shann Lane, Keighley. thetelegraphandargus

Old photo's Haworth

Mick Walpole‎I love Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage

 

WUTHERING HEIGHTS 1920

Mick Walpole I love Haworth and the Bronte Parsonage

See also: screenplay-of-one-of-most-famous-bronte films

 

Haworth 1940s weekend and the Parsonage

The Telegraph & Argus announces of the events that will take place next weekend (Haworth 1940s weekend) at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:Treasures by candlelight are on offer to Bronte fans during an after-hours museum visit. The Brontë Parsonage Museum is taking part in the national Museums At Night event on Friday. Education officer Sue Newby will give people a guided tour of the parsonage’s rooms by candlelight, before collections manager Ann Dinsdale lets visitors have a rare close-up view of valuable Brontë items in the library – including manuscripts, pictures, and objects owned by the family during the 19th century. Sue said: “It’s the Haworth 1940s weekend so we will be speaking about things that happened during that time of the parsonage. “We know a lot about the Mitchells who were living here during the 1940s.”

Beautifull photo of the 1940s weekend on: paul joseph photography

More about the Michells: at-home-with-brontes-from-ann-dinsdale

Photo: Harold Mitchell

Haworth Station

Mick Walpole

 

The possibility of the post office closing

Now that Haworth has got its church clock back, it faces the possibility of its post office closing. The Telegraph and Argus has a couple of articles on the matter: Don’t let it be our last post in Haworth and Worry as Haworth post office set to close.
bronteblog

Haworth Old Hall

Burried deep beneath Haworth Old Hall, leading off from the cellars of this 400 four hundred-year old Tudor manor house, are two elaborate tunnels each nearly a mile in length. Once used as an escape route, one of the tunnels connects directly to Haworth Parish Church.

 

During the 1600s, The Emmott family owned most of the property in Haworth including what is now known as Haworth Old Hall. The Emmotts were recusants (those who remained loyal to the Roman Catholic Church and did not attend Church of England services) who kept up the old faith in the church and protected the priest and people from persecution during penal times.

During times of religious persecution, the Emmott family would use the tunnels beneath the house to offer the nonconformist people of Haworth a safe passage of escape from the forces of the Church of England. The last of the Emmott line to remain at the manor house was General Emmott Rawdon, also known as Green-Emmott-Rawdon. The association of the family and the Old Hall continues to this day among the characters described by the Bronte sisters in their novels.

This fine example of an old hall house, also known as a communal dwelling house, court house or resting place, stands at the bottom of the Church Gate, no doubt on the site of the original manor house. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, Haworth Old Hall as it now stands was erected as a collection of rooms that led off the main entrance hall, which itself was a most magnificent room with polished oak rafters.

By the 1870s the Old Hall had been divided into two cottages before being reconverted into one residence at the beginning of the 20th Century when the ancient hall became the dining area, revealing two magnificent stone fire places that had previously been hidden. hawortholdhall

HaworthOldHall
bazzasoft/ Emmott Family

That the streets of Haworth be lighted with gas

yorkshire-england

06/12/1864
"Carried unanimously, that the streets of Haworth be lighted with gas and the number of lamps do not exceed 10 this winter. Also that the Clerk gets the estimates for the erection of those lamps as soon as possible that the streets may be lighted without delay."
Extract from Haworth Local Board of Health Minute Book
haworth-village.org.uk/history

By 1823, numerous towns and cities throughout Britain were lit by gas. Gaslight cost up to 75% less than oil lamps or candles, which helped to accelerate its development and deployment. By 1859, gas lighting was to be found all over Britain and about a thousand gas works had sprung up to meet the demand for the new fuel. The brighter lighting which gas provided allowed people to read more easily and for longer. This helped to stimulate literacy and learning, speeding up the second Industrial Revolution. wiki/Gas_lighting

Gaslight fixtures were ornate and decorative whether they were used outdoors or indoors. Echoing the design themes of the times, they integrated well into contemporary architecture. Strangely enough, even while the incandescent lamp was gaining ground, new developments in the gaslight continued.
lighting/history

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

Trail Guide, a new initiative from English Heritage, the Brontë Society and Bradford Council:

Yorkshire Post presents the Haworth Village of the Brontës’ Trail Guide, a new initiative from English Heritage, the Brontë Society and Bradford Council:

“The idea of the trail was that it would highlight areas of the town that people don’t know so well,” says Deborah Wall of English Heritage. “And we wanted to give people a sense of what it would have been like when the Brontës were here.” Featuring 27 places of interest, it’s designed to take visitors a little off the beaten track and prove that there is more to the place than just Jane Eyre.“The Brontës are just a part of Haworth,” says Christine Went, heritage and conservation officer with the Brontë Society. “And they saw their own history as much bigger than that. Haworth was an important part of the textile industry in the 19th century but when Elizabeth Gaskell wrote Charlotte Brontë’s biography she portrayed the sisters as living in an isolated place. Charlotte, for her own reasons, perpetuated that idea – I think she was trying to make excuses for the writing of the novels which had been poorly received by some.” (...)
The new trail and and booklet are part of a wider project to preserve and enhance Haworth for future generations. The conservation project has involved replacing frontages of shops and businesses in the village in keeping with the 19th-century heritage of the village, maintaining the cobbles, or setts, on the Main Street and installing new windows into the old Schoolhouse, which played such an important part in the Brontë siblings’ lives. It was built in 1832 as a Sunday school with funds from the National Society and from public subscriptions generated through the efforts of Patrick Brontë.
“Charlotte, Anne and Branwell would all have taught at the Sunday school – there is some doubt about whether Emily did because she had strong views of her own on religion,” says Christine.
“Every year the Brontës would hold a tea party for the Sunday school teachers at the Parsonage – most of the other teachers were mill girls.”
Another point of interest on the trail is the home of carpenter William Wood who made much of the furniture still in the Brontë Parsonage and was employed by Patrick to do odd jobs including painting and decorating. “He also made all the Brontës’ coffins,” says Christine. “And he made cases for Barraclough clocks – the Barraclough family lived in Haworth. There is a Barraclough clock in the Parsonage and Ellen Nussey, Charlotte’s great friend, wrote how, after the death of her siblings, Charlotte would sit alone in the parlour with just the sound of the clock ticking.”
Christine and Deborah both acknowledge that the legacy of the Brontës is one of the main attractions for visitors to Haworth but they hope the trail and booklet bring out other aspects. “Really we want to broaden people’s understanding of its history,” says Deborah. “Down to a certain point on Main Street not much has changed really – Charlotte could walk up the hill today and still recognise it.”Haworth Village of the Brontës’ Trail Guide is free and available from Brontë Parsonage Museum, the Tourist Information Office and other shops in the village. bronteblog

The Masonic Lodge at Haworth, known as the Three Graces, underwent something of a revival in the 1830s. Kenneth Emsley wrote (BST, v. 20, pt 5, 1992) that the lodge contained “a wide cross-section of members from the local community,” especially skilled artisans. Branwell was initiated, probably through the instigation of John Brown, while still under age, in February 1836. The society no doubt ministered to the love of secret organizations which is seen in the juvenilia and is part of the underbelly of Romanticism. Branwell was a regular attendant in 1836–7, thereafter an occasional one – one of many examples in his life of an early enthusiasm which exhausted itself. The fact that Branwell was willing to act for a time as secretary (probably one of few in Haworth capable of doing so) and that Patrick was willing to preach a special sermon for them, illustrates the loss of that revolutionary impulse in the movement that had attracted men such as Mozart. The Lodge met first in the Black Bull, then in the King’s Arms, and later had a permanent home in what is now Lodge Street, then known as Newell Hill. This tiny cul-de-sac was also home to the Haworth Mechanics’ Institute, and to William Wood, the Parsonage’s carpenter and cabinet-maker. blackwellreference
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William Wood, village carpenter and nephew of Tabby. carpenter+William+Wood+of+haworth

Old Haworth

Jack Hargreaves

Main St.

 

 

Historic Haworth

Georges Renaux

HAWORTH MAIN STREET
The flag-stones with which the steep ascentis is paved are placed end-ways, in order to give a better hold to the horses' feet. (Mrs Gaskell, Life.)