The Brontes
The short, tragic and unhappy lives of Charlotte Brontë and her literary siblings, Emily and Anne produced some of the best-loved and popular classics ever written.
Charlotte's most famous books were Jane Eyre and Shirley, while Emily wrote one book, Wuthering Heights and Anne's novels include Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. The parsonage in the pretty village of Haworth, West Yorkshire where they lived with their father and troubled and wayward brother, Branwell is now a museum and is exactly how the family left it. The parsonage is only a short distance from the wild, windswept Pennine moors described in their novels.
The Brontë Way footpath, which starts near Birstall in Kirklees, and ends at Padiham, Lancashire, winds through many places which inspired the writings of the Brontës. Charlotte Brontë visited Oakwell Hall in Batley, West Yorkshire and the house was immortalised as 'Fieldhead' in her novel Shirley. Thornton, a small village on the outskirts of Bradford, is the birthplace of the Brontës. The Pennine Way National Trail passes Top Withins, a desolate ruin high above Howarth, which is reputed to be the setting for Heathcliff's moorland farmstead in Wuthering Heights. A short walk from the village of Stanbury is Ponden Hall, which is widely believed to be the inspiration for 'Thrushcross Grange' in Wuthering Heights. Nearby is the picturesque Brontë falls, the Brontë Bridge and the Brontë Stone Chair where, it is said, the sisters took turns to sit and write their first stories.
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