What do they have against Haworth?

This is the second article in The Guardian advising people not to go to Haworth. Why is that? Despite the "hordes" Haworth manages to remain familiar, charming, cosy and quaint, and makes for a lovely day out.

Haworth, West Yorkshire
If only the Brontës had had some talented neighbours - that's all I can say after staggering back from the cobbles of Haworth with everything from Emily pot-pourri to easy payment terms for a Brontë Sunbed. Never, has a birthplace gone so overboard about its first family. Charlotte wrote as early as 1850 about sightseers coming "boring to Haworth" as if they were weevils. It's a cliche of a comparison, but they have swollen to an army of ants.
There just isn't room. The Parsonage has fine things to show but too often it's just a queue. The walk to the waterfalls is like a crocodile outing from school. The whole point of Emily's moors was their wild freedom, but the signs (in Japanese and English, so great is the power of this touro-magnet) point to one tried-n-tested clough, beck and ruin. The tours don't have time for any right to roam.
Parking is complicated and, though the steam train from Keighley is nice, it's crocodile time again for the hike to Brontëland. To cap it all a socking great windmill has been plonked on the neighbouring hillside. Why don't Thornton (the sisters' birthplace) and Cowan Bridge (home of their school) get their act together and divert some of the hordes?
Martin Wainwright

Mr Wainwright, we have been to Haworth several times in August and always the Parsonage felt ample - not completely empty, fortunately for them, but not once did we have to "queue" or encountered "crocodile time" outside.

About the moors. You don't have to go on a tour or go where the Japanese signs point to. You can just follow your own feet and go where they lead you. They are so vast that you have plenty of wild freedom there. Perhaps you simply stayed at the very beginning, but had you taken a step inside more you wouldn't be saying that. And what's wrong with the signals in Japanese anyway? They make up much of the tourists there and should they be left to get lost in the immense space of the moors just so that the place retains its "charm"?

And finally, those places and others scattered around Brontë and Shirley Country do "divert" some tourists, but you will agree with us that tourists with a tight schedule will always choose Haworth - where the Brontës lived most of their lives - as the place to go.

And why does it bother them so much that there are so many Brontë-related products? London, Paris, New York, all have souvenirs selling their best-known features as best they can. They don't expect people to live as in the 1850s just because it's Haworth, do they?

Some people are too into the "off the beaten paths" of the world to appreciate why so many people are going to the same places. Well, you won't be missed.

A very big HMPH!

Categories: Haworth