Open doors

Lucasta Miller, author of The Brontë Myth, writes an article for The Guardian on this weekend's big event in the UK: that is famous houses which will be open to the public. This includes both houses which are usually closed to the public and free entrance to the ones which are regularly open.

Across the country this weekend, many notable buildings usually closed to the public will be opening their doors as part of Heritage Open Days. Among them are a number of houses associated with famous writers - for example, Cloud's Hill, TE Lawrence's rural retreat in Dorset, whose austere rooms apparently remain much as he left them. [...]
Virginia Woolf's first piece of published journalism, written in 1904, described a visit to the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, already a museum. She opened her article in a spirit of uncertainty: "I do not know whether pilgrimages to the shrines of famous men ought not to be condemned as sentimental journeys," she opined.

Erm... We are very sorry to have to correct such a knowledgeable person on Brontë matters as Lucasta Miller is, but in 1904 the Haworth Parsonage was still a private home to the Haworth incumbent. When Virginia Woolf made her famous trip to Haworth, the ever-growing Brontë Collection was located in the old Yorkshire Penny Bank, at the top of the Main Street, which now houses the Tourist Information Office. Virginia Woolf herself states it pretty clearly actually:

At the top the interest for a Brontë lover becomes suddenly intense. The church, the parsonage, the Brontë Museum, the school where Charlotte taught, and the Bull Inn where Branwell drank are all within a stone's throw of each other.

Virginia Woolf does seem to have made it into the house, however, although it was a private house:

The house itself is precisely the same as it was in Charlotte's day, save that one new wing has been added. It is easy to shut the eye to this, and then you have the square, boxlike parsonage, built of the ugly yellow-brown stone which they quarry from the moors behind, precisely as it was when Charlotte lived and died there. Inside, of course, the changes are many, though not such as to obscure the original shape of the rooms. There is nothing remarkable in a mid-Victorian parsonage, though tenanted by genius, and the only room which awakens curiosity is the kitchen, now used as an ante-room, in which the girls tramped as they conceived their work. One other spot has a certain grim interest - the oblong recess beside the staircase into which Emily drove her bulldog during the famous fight, and pinned him while she pommelled him. It is otherwise a little sparse parsonage, much like others of its kind. It was due to the courtesy of the present incumbent that we were allowed to inspect it; in his place I should often feel inclined to exorcise the three famous ghosts.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum didn't open as such until August 4, 1928 (thus it will celebrate its 80th birthday next year) through the generosity of Sir James Roberts, which bought it and donated it to the Brontë Society.

Lucasta Miller's article continues:

Though she found the personal relics on display "touching", Woolf recoiled from the dubious pleasures of ogling Emily Brontë's tiny shoes as if it were an emotional indulgence that detracted from "the chiefly memorable fact that [Brontë] was a great writer". All we need, Woolf implies with bracing rationalism, is the writers' books; reminders of their humanity are trivialising and vulgar. One imagines her shuddering in horror at the thought of Charleston throbbing with paying visitors as it does today.
Yet the rejection of the cult of authors' houses is perhaps a form of denial, suggesting a desire on Woolf's part to cordon the writer off from reality. Great literature does emerge from the messiness of lived experience as much as from the intellect, and if Emily Brontë fed her mind with German texts as she made bread in the kitchen at Haworth, seeing her kitchen can only get us closer to the creative process that resulted in Wuthering Heights, in which domestic detail features as much as the literary influence of ETA Hoffmann.

A visit to the Parsonage is well worth it this weekend, but we have found on the Heritage Open Days website more places of interest to Brontë enthusiasts.

Red House, which apart from its connection to Charlotte's friend Mary Taylor houses a permanent exhbition on Charlotte Brontë called The Secret's Out:

Oxford Road, Gomersal, Cleckheaton, West Yorkshire, BD19 4JP
Description:
Delightful period house displayed as 1830s home of Mary Taylor, lifelong friend of Charlotte Brontë. Charlotte was a regular visitor and used the house as a model for ‘Briarmains’ in her novel ‘Shirley’. Beautiful gardens and exhibitions in Barn and Cartshed.
Directions:
Signposted off A651 in Gomersal
Map of BD19 4JP
Opening times:
Sat 8th Sept, 1200-1700
Sun 9th Sept, 1200-1700

St Oswald's Church, where Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell got married:

The Green, Guiseley, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS20
Description:
St Oswald's family trail. Walk through history discovering a secret garden and the Brontë connection. Something to interest all ages. Refreshments available. Directions:
A65 to centre of Guiseley, cross railway into The Green, 8 mins walk from Guiseley Station
Opening times:
Sun 9th Sept, 1400-1600 Tour 1400

Holy Trinity Church in Little Ouseburn is the church where Anne and Branwell worshipped when working for the Robinson family at Thorp Green. Anne sketched the church in pencil:

Little Ouseburn, Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, YO26 9TD
Description:
Grade I listed church with Bronte connections and recently restored Grade II listed 18th century mausoleum. Exhibition on "Your Village Church".
Directions:
Just off the B6265 Boroughbridge to York rd. Limited on-site parking
Map of YO26 9TD
Opening times:
Sat 8th Sept, 1000-1600
Sun 9th Sept, 1000-1600

Gawthorpe Hall, former home to Sir James and Lady Kay-Shuttleworth, where Charlotte Brontë visited them (quite reluctantly):

Burnley Road, Padiham, Lancashire, BB12 8UA
Description:
Come along and experience life in this splendid Elizabethan manor house, see the period rooms where Charlotte Bronte once walked and admire the best collection of lace and embroidery outside London.
Directions:
Approx 3 miles from M65 J10 off the A671
Map of BB12 8UA
Opening times:
Sun 9th Sept, 1300-1700

North Lees Hall, one of the possible real-life inspirations for Thornfield Hall. The Hall can now be rented:

Birley Lane, Hathersage, Derbyshire, S32 1BR
Updated: 05 September. Fully booked for Thursday and Friday!
Description:
An imposing Elizabethan tower house commanding panoramic views over the Peak District countryside. Normally let as luxurious holiday accommodation by the Vivat Trust. Believed to have provided the inspiration for Thornfield Hall in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre.
Directions:
In Hathersage, turn into Coggers Lane, take 1st R, hall is 1/2m on L
Map of S32 1BR
Opening times:
Sat 8th Sept, 1200-1700

Now don't say you have nothing to do this weekend!

Categories: Alert, Brontëana, In the News