Brontë in the Heights Chapel

The Manchester Evening News and the Oldham Advertiser publish some new details about the upcoming (?) shooting of the Brontë biopic. A new location is highlighted: St Thomas Church in Friarmere, aptly known as 'Heights Chapel':

TOP Hollywood stars are set to bring their celebrity showbusiness lifestyle to a north west village chosen as a location for a multi-million pound film.
Kristen Scott Thomas, John Hurt and Evan Rachel Wood will settle in the tiny Oldham village of Delph to film the movie about the Bronte sisters.
The film - Bronte - will tell the story of Charlotte, Anne and Emily, who were responsible for some of the most enduring literary classics, including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
It will be directed by Charles Sturridge, who won a Bafta and an American Emmy award for the TV adaptation of the novel Brideshead Revisited.
Film-makers have selected St Thomas Friarmere, known locally and rather more aptly as Heights Chapel, to create the Yorkshire church where the three Bronte sisters' father was curate and where many family members are buried.
Produced by AMC Pictures and Film Squared, the film will be screened worldwide next year by Mel Gibson's Icon Entertainment company. On the movie's website, the producers said: "The bleak Victorian graveyard has an epic background.

Resemblance

"Although the church itself has no tower, it bears a striking resemblance to the simplicity of the original St Michael's and the art department drew up plans to build a tower - a mix of construction and digital extension - the only element missing was the parsonage itself."
The exterior of the parsonage will also be recreated before filming begins in May.
The Saddleworth area, which includes Delph, is most closely associated with 1978 film Yanks, which starred Richard Gere, while Brassed Off, The Parole Officer and Resurrected have all been filmed in the area, as have TV series including Sherlock Holmes and Last of the Summer Wine.
Heights Chapel has been used in TV thrillers Cold Blood and Eleventh Hour, as well as The Parole Officer, which starred Steve Coogan. The Rev John Brocklehurst of St Thomas' said the news had stirred some excitement among parishioners.
"A funeral at Heights Chapel in winter is like Wuthering Heights," he said.
"It's pretty grim when it's cold, wet and windy. But it's a gorgeous setting on a sunny day, the perfect place to go back a few centuries." (Stuart Greer)

Picture Sources: Picture1 and Picture 2

Categories: In the News, Movies-DVD-TV