Visit The Bronte Haworth Parsonage
Discover The Museum of The Bronte Family in Haworth Yorkshire
The remarkable and tragic story of the Bronte sisters captivates many fans of literature. It seems almost unbelievable today that three sisters; daughters of a poor vicar living in the backwaters of a small Yorkshire village, could all produce novels of worldwide importance.
Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre (1847); Emily produced Wuthering Heights (1847), while Anne wrote Agnes Grey (1847), and The Tenant of Wildfel Hall (1848). Sadly, Emily, Anne and talented but broken brother Branwell died within 12 months of each other in 1848-9, and Charlotte died not yet 40 just a few years later.
Today their home, Haworth Parsonage, is a place of pilgrimage for fans of the Bronte literature. Amazingly, much of the furniture used by the Bronte family is in the house today, and it is painstakingly decorated in the style of the early 1850’s. Fortunately, when the father of the family, the Reverend Patrick Bronte died in 1861, records of the auction selling his belongings were kept. The Bronte society, founded just 30 years later, managed to locate and collect many of the dispersed pieces.
Haworth Parsonage
Today, the Bronte Parsonage is busy with visitors and tour parties. Although the Parsonage is small, each of the rooms is crammed with items used and produced by the Bronte family. Mr Bronte’s study, for example, contains his book of psalms, his writing desk and magnifying glass, while the cottage piano, mainly played by Emily, stands in the corner of the room. Meanwhile, the dining room, where the sisters did most of their writing, contains the sofa on which Emily died.
The more interesting exhibits of the Parsonage Museum must be the things the family produced. There are examples of each of the children’s writing and paintings, demonstrating their diverse artistic skills. When children, the Bronte’s produced stories about a fantasyland and a number of these are on display.
Branwell’s studio is so-called because it contains many of the surviving portraits completed by him. Branwell tried to earn a living as a Victorian artist, producing studies of local mill owners and politicians of Yorkshire. While most of his paintings are ordinary, a couple show a good artist technique. Unfortunately, Branwell had an affair with an older married woman, and its discovery and subsequent end proved too much for him. His alcoholic binges proved too much for his delicate constitution, and he was the first of the adult siblings to die.
The family (apart from Anne, who died while on an extended vacation in Scarborough), are buried in a crypt in the nearby church.
Haworth
The museum also tells the story of the poverty and hard living experienced in the local village in the 1850’s. Sanitary and working conditions were terrible in this small mill town and life expectancy was low. Today, the town, with its tourist shops and tearooms seems far removed from those days, but many of the buildings in the village centre date from the era, and a blustery winter’s day can bring the harsh times flooding back.
While visiting the museum, it is also worth taking some time to stroll down the village's main cobbled street, or to walk up over the bleak moors to the ruins of Top Withens, the setting for Emily’s Wuthering Heights.
Haworth Parsonage
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Haworth Church From The Parsonage
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