Brontë Hotel. Brontë Balti. Brontë Bistro. By the time we reached Heathcliff Holiday Cottages, we knew we were getting pretty close.
After six hours due north on the A1, we (my sister was at the wheel) had reached Haworth, in the south Pennines, west of Bradford, north of the Peaks. And on the map since the 19th century as the home of that most famous of literary sisterhoods—the Brontës.
Our first stop, along with several parties of 75-year-olds (this was not a hip weekend) was the Brontë’s Haworth home. The Parsonage Museum manages to capture, amber-like, a real sense of the family. The grandfather clock on the landing was the most poignant to me—pausing to read how Patrick Brontë would stop to wind it each night and call his children up to bed, you realise you are standing in just the same spot as he did. It still somehow feels like it is their house.
Independent
Upstairs, Charlotte’s wedding clothes are on display—villagers at the time said she looked like a “snowdrop” on the day, with her white cap strewn with green embroidery—but she died just months into the marriage. The sadness of their lives can’t be missed; their mother died 18 months after their move to the Yorkshire village, and two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth also died whilst still at school.
In the final room of the house the sisters’ letters are on display, urging publishers to reconsider and take on their work; an open riposte to a critic by Charlotte; the mini-books they wrote for their toy soldiers to read. The real characters behind their words beam through—imaginative, strong, funny, kind. Maybe it is because they seem so independent, so able to make their own way in the world, that it still feels like they are in the house— I felt they would fit in today too.
Moor and moor
And then we took to the moors. The following day, after a really good night’s sleep in the Youth Hostel just outside the village we strode into the bluster of open Brontë country.
We did an 8-mile round walk, taking in Brontë Bridge, tucked into the corner of a valley, where Charlotte was said to rest and come up with her ideas, and Top Withens, a remote and now ruined cottage said to be the inspiration behind Wuthering Heights. Stalked by the visting A-level group from the Youth Hostel, we battled the winds and were rewarded by great views across an ever-widening horizon of heather and gorse, swooping black birds and the collection of roads and houses that make up Haworth itself. Although the Tourist Information leaflet ominously described it as “strenuous”, it wasn’t really—and totally worth every gasp-for-breath on the uphill stretches. And there was an ice cream van at the end.
The Brontës’ Parsonage occupies a site balanced on the edge of both village and moors. The idea that the writers had as much knowledge of industrial life as of the wildness of the moors was, maybe naively, new to me, but makes sense. Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – all contain as much harsh reality as mystical romance.
A quotation from Charlotte’s novel Shirley is picked out in one of the exhibition rooms: “I approve nothing Utopian. Look Life in its iron face – stare Reality out of its brassy countenance.” After a weekend at Haworth, you want to keep looking, as they did, for the wild and the true.
Youth Hostel Haworth
Cosy, great fill-you-up food, welcoming staff, impressive building. And a garden at the back for warmer times. I could live here all year round.
Adult: £11.95 per night (non-Youth Hostel Association members also pay a £3 supplement)
Bookings: 0845 371 950
Cobbles and Clay
60 Main Street, 01535 644 48
We collapsed here after our walk, ordering scones and cheesecake, and painting our impressions of the day onto plates. Used to catering for visitors, they deliver the fired finished product to wherever you are in the world for a few extra pounds. It is on the central, steep street in Haworth and has a lovely atmosphere.
Wharenui
27 Main Street, 01535 644 511
Our evening meal on Saturday night. This is a New Zealand-themed bistro at the bottom of the street. We both enjoyed our food, and it wasn’t too pricey. Prompt service and an open fire, not to be underestimated after a day on the moors.
Brontë Balti House
19 Mill Hey, 01535 647 879
We couldn’t resist the lure of this place after our drive up on Friday. Our take-away was delivered by the owner in a thermo-box and red Micra.
I’ve stayed at the Youth Hostel in Haworth too! Was full of tourists when I went though. Winter is def the time for proper “wuthering”.