SPRING.

 Haworth Brontes

The Parsonage garden in bloom.

Our team of volunteer gardeners have been hard at work for the past year, coming in when they've been able to do so safely to maintain the Parsonage garden. We think they're absolute stars - here are some pics of the beautiful blooms we're able to enjoy due to their hard work! facebook/BronteParsonageMuseum/photos/

And We’ve Got a House. Yes! We really have.’

So writes Elizabeth Gaskell in April 1850 about 42, Plymouth Grove, the house that was to become the Gaskells’ family home for the next sixty-three years. Over the years, visitors to Elizabeth Gaskell’s House have shown a great deal of interest in the building and the development of the Manchester suburbs. Attempts have previously been made to date the house, with a consensus settling on a period between 1837 and 1840. However, using the Manchester Rate Books, which give a year-by-year account of properties and their owner/occupiers, it is possible to make a more accurate calculation. Furthermore, these documents give a clear picture of the development of Manchester as an industrial city.

In the nineteenth century most people rented houses and a wealthy landlord might hold a large number of properties in his portfolio. Such was the case with William Occleshaw, a lead manufacturer with leasehold and freehold manufacturing properties in Lees-street, Whittle’s Croft, Junction-street, Mather-street, and Aqueduct-street, in Piccadilly, central Manchester. When Elizabeth Gaskell moved into 42, Plymouth Grove in 1850, Occleshaw’s estate ( he died in 1848) owned 25 properties in Plymouth Grove, including what was later to become the Elizabeth Gaskell House. Read all: gaskellsociety/building-plymouth-grove/ 

Charlotte Bronte. Moving face.

twitter/BronteParsonage/ 

Snow. Through the window of the Parsonage.

Look at the snow through the window of the Parsonage:

twitter/ann_dinsdale/ 

The Interior Elizabeth Gaskell's House

Beautiful photographs of Haworth in Decembre.

 What a beautiful photograph

Paul Marley  (click) is the photographer

He posted so much really great photo's

Look on his Facebookpage!

Isn't it fun, this one?

And this.....

Last night's Harvest moon over Haworth!!

Bronte, Anne, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. 1848. Peter Harrington Rare B...

Winter In Haworth.

 Photograph from facebook/ Dave Zdanowicz (click)

Comfort and Joy with Nick Holland.

Christmas day itself would have been a joyous one for the Brontës; beginning with a Christmas service at their father’s church, they would then settle down to a festive meal and doubtless the Haworth Brass Band would have called at the parsonage too. 

The Brontë sisters loved fun and laughter, and they especially loved music, so we can easily imagine them gathered round the parsonage piano. We know that Emily was a brilliant pianist, indeed she briefly gave piano lessons in Brussels, and that Anne Brontë liked to sing along in a voice described as ‘soft, yet sweet’.

This year has been a strange one and this Christmas will find many of us separated from those we love and want to be with, but better times are rapidly approaching and until then we can find solace and escape in great books such as Wuthering Heights.

 Nick Holland -  felixstowebookfestival 

Haworth's Christmas tree.

 This beautiful photograph is taken by Andy Sheppard

Friday evening with a chill in the air and a foggy night ahead on the moors

Haworth was still and quiet

The village tree this year looks splendid

Anne Brontë’s writing desk.

 Anne Brontë’s writing desk

@BronteParsonage

Haworth residents spruce up village in bid to make it "more beautiful than ever" following cancellation of Christmas events.

Residents in Haworth have committed to sprucing up the village’s famed Main Street with as much cheer as possible this year to keep up spirits, and businesses have urged people to continue to shop local and support independent businesses in an extremely difficult period.

Read all the article: yorkshirepost/haworth-residents-spruce-village-bid-make-it-more-beautiful-ever-following-cancellation-christmas-events

bronteadventures/haworth-shops

Anne Lister and Elizabeth Wadsworth.

This picture I took from Google Earth

It is always fun to search on Google Earth and then suddenly, yes, there it is

The Law Hill estate [outside Halifax, where Emily Brontë was teaching in 1838] had a contemporary neighbour of equal notoriety and interest: the heiress, Anne Lister, who lived at Shibden Hall with her lover, Ann Walker, in a lesbian relationship, the nature and ardour of which were only made widely known in the 20th century when Lister’s remarkable diaries were decoded and published. Local gossips would not have needed the evidence of a diary to confirm what was going on at Shibden Hall, though. Lister’s masculine style was so pronounced that one of her lovers, Marianna Lawton, used to be ashamed to be seen in public with her, and her nickname in Halifax was ‘Gentleman Jack.’ “You do not know what is said of your friend!” a tipsy well-wisher once warned Marianna. But she did, and Elizabeth Patchett [Emily Brontë’s boss] surely did too. It would have been strange if Emily Brontë had not met Anne Lister sometime in her seven-month sojourn next door, and it is interesting that Emily’s time at Law Hill, high on the moors, gave her both stories of bitter past rivalries prosecuted over generations, and an understanding of a wild, passionate and very unconventional erotic force [which Emily would later use as inspiration for writing 'Wuthering Heights’]

~ Charlotte Brontë: A Life // Claire Harman beau--brummell

losthouses/in-search-of-high-sunderland-and-wuthering-height

During the time Anne Lister lived at Shibden Hall

Elizabeth Wadsworth 

lived at Holdsworth House, just three miles away

Holdsworthhouse

holdsworthhouse/bronte-era

Wadsworth was older than Lister (closer in age to Lister’s aunt Anne and uncle James with whom Lister lived). Wadsworth was a descended from a wealthy Halifax family and educated at the same school as Lister, The Manor in York. Wadsworth kept diaries covering the same period as Lister and it’s these diaries (held on deposit at West Yorkshire Archive Services) that have recently unearthed Wadsworth’s connections to the Lister family, as well as the Brontes of nearby.Through her connections in the church and her charity work, Wadsworth’s diaries disclose connections with ‘Mr Brunty’ (Reverend Patrick Bronte) and Dorothy Wordsworth (sister of poet William). yorkshire/anne-lister

The early 1800s was a time of great army captains like Wellington and Lord Nelson (and of course a Duke of Wellington’s Regiment was based in Halifax). Elizabeth Wadsworth makes references to these great names in her daily observations of the news. Other names interwoven in Miss Wadsworth’s life include Dorothy Wordsworth who lived in Halifax (the sister of poet William Wordsworth) with whom she drank tea on occasions. Through her links with the churches in Bradford and Haworth, Miss Wadsworth was acquainted with Patrick Bronte and his wife Maria, parents of Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Bramwell. holdsworthhouse

Anne Lister of Shibden Hall

 was a wealthy landowner of similar social standing to Miss Wadsworth. 

Lister was a more prolific diarist and became posthumously famous because parts of her lengthy diaries were in secret code. The code, once deciphered, revealed a number of Anne Lister’s lesbian love interests, which were considered shocking at the time. Anne Lister has since been the subject of a number of TV dramas, the latest BBC One/HBO costume drama Gentleman Jack airs spring 2019.

Have a tour of Elizabeth Gaskell's House