Brontëland, by Disney

Summit Daily News compiles the April Fool's Day hoaxes which are - in their opinion - the best of the last few years. One grabs our attention:

2) Bronte Land

My friends in Haworth, Yorkshire, shared this one with me. A few years ago, during the week of April first, one of the weekly newspapers ran a front page cover story claiming that the entire village of Haworth had been sold to an American company - I believe it was Disney - and would be turned into a theme park, to be called "Bronte Land."

(For those of you scratching your heads over this one, the mid-19th century literary Bronte sisters not only put their hometown of Haworth on the map - thanks to the success of novels such as "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" - but also have continued to be the main industry for the village, making it the number-two literary tourist attraction in England, after Shakespeare's Stratford-upon-Avon).

Anyway, the highlight of "Bronte Land" was going to be a huge monorail, stretched out over the entire length of the moors above the village. Every so often, a local will bring up the "Bronte Land" hoax again and, with a profound shudder, show you a copy of the newspaper. (Keely Brown)

Hilarious! Just imagine that. Unaware of this, BrontëBlog has frequently joked about the idea of a Brontë theme park. What about an attraction where instead of spinning around in Alice's teacups you went round and round on someone's gravestone?

In our collection of April Fool's Day jokes are last year's about Haworth's new name and the previous year's, before BrontëBlog was born, when Richmond's portrait of Charlotte appeared on a piece of toast!

Well then, Brontëland or not, Vox user Jaie dreams of going to Haworth some day. The Brontës would have been puzzled at the mere thought of Haworth attracting visitors but that's the way it is. BrontëBlog is also daydreaming about a visit to Haworth...

Categories: Haworth, Humour