Yorkshire, UK

The dales and moors of Yorkshire are a well-established muse for writers and visual artists. Most recently, the region has served as the romantic location for “Wuthering Heights” and “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale.” The North Yorkshire Moors Railway and the Yorkshire Dales make appearances in both and are a must-see when visiting. Make sure to squeeze in a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, where the Brontë family lived from 1820 to 1861. The historic space offers fascinating insight into the lives of the three Brontë sisters and the world that inspired “Wuthering Heights.” (Jeanette D. Moses)

   

The team at the Brontë Birthplace is celebrating a year that saw the historic house opened as a visitor centre.

The Market Street house, where Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell Brontë were born, opened to the public for the first time in its 200-year history, following a major renovation. Funding from more than 700 investors, together with grants from Bradford 2025, the Community Ownership Fund, National Lottery Heritage Fund and the Rural England Prosperity Fund led to the house being purchased and placed in the care of Brontë Birthplace Limited.

In May, Queen Camilla officially opened the Birthplace as a visitor and education centre, with a cafe and overnight stay facilities. The Be More Brontë campaign was launched, to inspire children to take on new life challenges.

In May, Queen Camilla officially opened the Birthplace as a visitor and education centre, with a cafe and overnight stay facilities. The Be More Brontë campaign was launched, to inspire children to take on new life challenges.

Fundraising Co-ordinator Nigel West says: “It is an amazing story of Bradford City of Culture 2025, using their legacy funding, then 770 members contributing and the formation of a Community Benefit Society that will protect the Birthplace for the community. It is the most important heritage opening anywhere in the UK this year and as significant to this country as Shakespeare’s birthplace.”

A range of events at the house this year has included author talks, educational workshops and theatre performances. Next year the team plans to build on the work and success of 2025. Adds Nigel: “This year has been a dream come true for everyone involved in the Birthplace project. We can’t wait to see what 2026 will hold for this amazing little house which has provided a lasting legacy for Thornton, Bradford and Brontë fans worldwide.”

On a recent visit to Brontë Birthplace, I’m met by education officer Charlotte Jones, who has held a school workshop that morning. Charlotte is an excellent guide; a mine of information about the house, and Thornton, when the young Brontë family lived there, from 1815-1820. Market Street, she explains, was then the main road linking Bradford to Halifax, surrounded by moorland. Thornton’s landmark viaduct, and many of its houses, had yet to be built.

We begin the tour in the hallway, with original staircase. When the Brontës lived here it was a busy household - home to Patrick, young curate of Thornton’s Bell Chapel, his wife Maria and their six children. You can almost hear them running downstairs and through the rooms.

In the parlour stands a desk beneath a portrait of Patrick, who had two books published while living here. This room, furnished in Regency style, with the original fireplace, was where Maria entertained friends from the village.

Items found in the house during last year’s renovation are displayed in a cabinet, including handwritten homework, which had slipped behind a skirting board, by a girl who once lived there - she returned to the house this year, Charlotte revealed - a Corgi toy box and animal bones from when the property was a butcher’s shop, with slaughterhouse at the back.

The display reflects the history of the village, when its mills and houses were built in the mid-1800s. Pointing out a laudanum bottle, Charlotte tells of a Board of Health inspector in Thornton, horrified to find mothers giving their children opium as “infants preservative”.

There’s an 1812 workhouse coin, a pair of child’s clogs, spectacles and, in one display case, things that would have been dear to Maria, including a lace shawl and kid leather gloves. “Maria gets a bit lost in the family’s story, especially in Haworth. This house was her domain,” said Charlotte.

At the back is the kitchen, with original flagstones discovered by builders during the renovation, and the old wooden ceiling. The back stairs tell the story of Nancy De Garrs, selected by Patrick from the Bradford School of Industry, which trained girls for jobs in service. Nancy, 13, was nursemaid to the children and her sister Sarah, 12 was employed to help her. Nancy later became cook and housekeeper.

“It is in this room where the children would’ve got under their feet, and where they told them stories,” says Charlotte. “We know now that early years learning is so important. Both Nancy and Sarah were so influential on the Brontës, yet they get so little recognition.”

Upstairs, in Nancy and Sarah’s room, are dressing-up clothes and toys for today’s children to play with. “We do ‘laundry with Sarah De Garrs’ with school groups and quill and ink sessions,” says Charlotte.

The three main bedrooms are now available to stay in. Charlotte’s room is where the children slept. “This is the only room in the world that all the Brontës slept in,” says Charlotte. “We think there may have been a dressing-room here, as there were reports of Patrick seen at the window shaving.”

Emily’s bedroom was Patrick and Maria’s room, and Anne’s room is at the end of the landing, in the extension built after the Brontës’ time. At the original window, now restored, it is said the children could be seen, looking out for Patrick coming home. Each bedroom is beautifully furnished, with an en-suite bathroom.

“There’s been a lot of interest in overnight stays,” says Charlotte. “We’ve had guests from Canada and Japan. A man from Germany stood in Nancy’s room and cried; he was so moved that the house was finally restored.”

The tour ends in the education area and cafe. It was a pleasure to spend an hour with Charlotte - her passion for preserving and passing on the Brontë legacy really brought the house to life.

The Brontës left Thornton in 1820 but this house still feels like a warm family home. Ahead of a new era of Brontëmania, with February’s release of Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights film, starring Margot Robbie, this modest mid-terrace house is a reminder that the story of Emily, Charlotte and Anne began here in Thornton. (Emma Clayton)

Planning permission has been granted to turn an historic building with links to the Bronte family into three properties.

The planning permission relates to the former Red House Museum in Gomersal, a Grade II* listed building which operated as a small community museum before its closure in 2016.

Listed building consent has also been granted as part of the proposals.

Under the plans, the main house will be renovated and turned into two, three-bedroom homes, and the barn will be converted into a four-bedroom home, with part of the ground floor extended.

The coach house will be renovated into ancillary accommodation for the barn.

The main house – a two-storey detached building – was originally constructed around 1660 and extensively refurbished in the 19th century.

The building has historic links to the Bronte family and is mentioned in Charlotte Bronte’s ‘Shirley’.

In the application’s decision report, the council said the site was offered for Community Asset Transfer following its closure in 2016, but that “none of the proposals received were assessed as being realistically viable.”

The site was later sold at public auction in December 2024.

On the development’s visual amenity, the decision report said: “It is considered that although there will be some alterations to the buildings, the harm this will cause will be outweighed by the building remaining in use and being restored where it otherwise may have gone into disrepair.”

No representations were received for the change of use application, however seven were received as part of the application for listed building consent.

One of these was an objection and one was a general comment. (Catherine Gannon)

   

More than fifty years ago, Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford published a reconstruction of Emily Brontë's Gondal poems in the format of a novel: Gondal's Queen, 1973. Now, Emiliano Vitali tries to do the same:

The Queen of Gondal

by Emiliano Vitali

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 979-8269872667

2025

A visionary novel inspired by Emily Brontë’s secret poetic universe — now revealed for the first time.

Years before the publication of Wuthering Heights, a young Emily Brontë, together with her sister Anne, imagined a dark and windswept paracosm: Gondal, a northern kingdom torn by war, betrayal, and fierce passions — alongside Gaaldine, its exotic and turbulent colony.

At the heart of this gothic fantasy stand Augusta Geraldine Almeda, a fiery and indomitable queen, and Julius Brenzaida, a tormented antihero. Bound by desire, infidelity, and revenge, they echo the tragic intensity of Catherine and Heathcliff.

Emily’s poetic manuscripts — long unpublished — sing of stormy seas, dark dungeons, and harrowing conflicts. Beneath their evocative power lies the submerged thread of an epic and unfinished saga, now reconstructed in novel form.

The Queen of Gondal transforms those fragmented verses into a novel of epic and tragic resonance, breathing life into Brontë’s poetic visions, anticipating not only the gothic and tormented atmosphere of Wuthering Heights, but, with striking modernity, the settings and themes of contemporary fantasy.

There is also an Intalian spoken language.