Look on the Bronte table.

 

keighleynews

Absolutely stunning

The Telegraph and Argus has an article on the original Brontë table being on show now that the Brontë Parsonage Museum has reopened as well as looking at what the new season holds.
A mahogany drop-leaf table where the Bronte sisters sat to write some of their greatest works is back home in Haworth.   Visitors to the Bronte Parsonage were able to see it back in its original setting today when the museum re-opened to the public after a short winter break with its collections refreshed. The artefact, where classics such as Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights were written, returned to the parsonage on Thursday after leaving the Bronte's home in a sale that took place when Patrick Bronte died in 1861. It did return to the Parsonage on loan in 1997 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Jane Eyre, but thanks to a £580,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF) - secured by the Bronte Society - the table has finally been returned permanently. Rebecca Yorke at the Bronte Parsonage Museum said: "It's return is really significant. it's one of the most important literary artefacts of the 19th century. "We know from diary papers the sisters would walk round the table when their father had gone to bed to read each other what they had written every day. When Emily died Ann and Charlotte continued the tradition and then when Anne died, Charlotte did it by herself. It was a very particular part of their routine.
"When it arrived last week it was a beautiful table but now it has been dressed with the sisters' writing things and cups and saucers in the dining room where it would have originally been, it looks absolutely stunning."

Today's first visitor through the doors was greeted with a free guide to the Museum in celebration of the table's homecoming.  As well as the simple wooden table, visitors will also be able to explore other permanent collections - a current exhibition The Brontes and Animals and a new one called Heathcliff Adrift, which was specially commissioned and is part of the Museum's Contemporary Arts Programme this year. It is a collection of poetry by award-winning writer Benjamin Myers and follows the missing three years of Emily Bronte’s hero from Wuthering Heights, accompanied by a series of landscape photographs by Yorkshire photographer Nick Small. It looks at what could have happened to Heathcliff at that time when the industrial revolution was in its earliest days and the ragged landscape was under threat from the arrival of mechanisation. The exhibition opens on Saturday, February 7 and will run until June. The Brontes and Animals exhibition in the Bonnell Room will stay until March when it makes way for a brand new one giving a nod to the Bronte family's fascination with war and acknowledging the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. Its curator will be Bronte scholar Emma Butcher. (Kathie Griffiths)

And there the table stands.

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Brontë table is now back at the Parsonage. “It was one of the most significant occasions during all my time at the parsonage.”

facebook/Bronte Parsonage Museum

 

The Yorkshire Post reports that the Brontë table is now back at the Parsonage.

The dining table where the Brontë sisters sat to write some of their greatest works has returned to its Yorkshire home to stay. Staff at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth were on hand yesterday (Thurs) to welcome the artefact which arrived unscathed and on time - despite the extreme weather conditions sweeping the north of England.  Ann Dinsdale, collections manager at the Brontë Parsonage, who has been at the museum for 26 years, said: “It was one of the most significant occasions during all my time at the parsonage.” The table left the parsonage in the sale that took place when Patrick Brontë died in 1861 and returned on loan in 1997 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the publication of Jayne Eyre. Thanks to a £580,000 grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), the table where classics such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Emily’s Wuthering Heights were written, has been secured by the Brontë Society for future generations to enjoy in its original setting.  Visitors can see the mahogany drop-leaf table from Sunday when the museum reopens.  Brontë Society & Brontë Parsonage Museum spokeswoman, Rebecca Yorke, said: “It arrived amid much excitement and anticipation. Because of the weather we were worried there might be hold ups on its journey. In 2016 we start celebrating the bicentenaries of the birth of the Brontë siblings. This is a really great start to the bicentenary celebrations.”

The family dining table where the Bronte sisters wrote some of their classic novels has been saved for the nation.

 

A grant of more than £580,000 has secured the table where the family gathered to write and share ideas, and where books such as Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, Emily's Wuthering Heights and Anne's The Tenant Of Wildfell Hall were written. 

The table, which bears the marks of use including ink blots, a large candle burn and a small "E" carved on to its surface, was sold after the death of their father Patrick in 1861, remaining in the same family ever since.

Without the grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), which exists to save the most outstanding parts of the UK's national heritage, it would have been sold at public auction but thanks to the money it has now been secured by the Bronte Society.

read more: telegraph

When I was a child we had a dining table that had belonged to the Bronte family

When Joanne Hutton lived at the Parsonage she held guided tours. Here is Josh, her Grandson, pointing (heroically) to the window from where his uncle used to hang and heckle her during the tours. — bij Bronte Museum & Parsonage.

I received this reaction from Ferndean Manor on one of my posts:
""The parsonage has had a fascinating history. We spoke a couple of years ago about Ferndean Manor and also the research i was doing about Branwell. Since then I have been given access to Joanne Huttons memoirs (mentioned in your article, the first female curator of the parsonage) together with her grandson we are writing a new history of the Bronte story as she reveals many revelations from her knowledge of them, the Bronte society and people who have tried to control the legacy. The memoirs and also an unpublished manuscript are very exciting and we hope the book will generate much discussion. In the mean time we are posting up little bits of research and a few teasers here:

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On this Facebook page I read this: 

""  My name is Ian Howard and my family were connected to the Brontes. Exactly how, we are not sure, but that is one of the motivations for me to embark on researching this story. When I was a child we had a dining table that had belonged to the Bronte family and also a first edition Jane Eyre which was stolen from a Bronte exhibition. I’m still trying to track that book down.

After leaving school and a short lived apprenticeship in the textile industry I became a serving police officer which brought me into contact with some rather senior members of the Freemasons and when I left the force I worked as a private investigator on behalf of solicitors, banks and national newspapers. It is not a period of my life that I am particularly proud of and in the fullness of time I did realise it wasn’t the nicest of jobs to have shaping my personality. After a sort of epiphany, I dropped out and started on what I would like to consider a more consciousness evolving path. My past did however put me in good stead to both get my teeth into serious research and also understand some people’s duplicity and ulterior motives. 
I will go into much more detail of all this in the book but for the sake of facebook, I think that is enough for the time being""

I think, this really is interesting and I wait to hear some more news.