In May, Queen Camilla officially opened the Birthplace as a visitor and education centre, with a cafe and overnight stay facilities. The Be More Brontë campaign was launched, to inspire children to take on new life challenges.
In May, Queen Camilla officially opened the Birthplace as a visitor and education centre, with a cafe and overnight stay facilities. The Be More Brontë campaign was launched, to inspire children to take on new life challenges.
Fundraising Co-ordinator Nigel West says: “It is an amazing story of Bradford City of Culture 2025, using their legacy funding, then 770 members contributing and the formation of a Community Benefit Society that will protect the Birthplace for the community. It is the most important heritage opening anywhere in the UK this year and as significant to this country as Shakespeare’s birthplace.”
A range of events at the house this year has included author talks, educational workshops and theatre performances. Next year the team plans to build on the work and success of 2025. Adds Nigel: “This year has been a dream come true for everyone involved in the Birthplace project. We can’t wait to see what 2026 will hold for this amazing little house which has provided a lasting legacy for Thornton, Bradford and Brontë fans worldwide.”
On a recent visit to Brontë Birthplace, I’m met by education officer Charlotte Jones, who has held a school workshop that morning. Charlotte is an excellent guide; a mine of information about the house, and Thornton, when the young Brontë family lived there, from 1815-1820. Market Street, she explains, was then the main road linking Bradford to Halifax, surrounded by moorland. Thornton’s landmark viaduct, and many of its houses, had yet to be built.
We begin the tour in the hallway, with original staircase. When the Brontës lived here it was a busy household - home to Patrick, young curate of Thornton’s Bell Chapel, his wife Maria and their six children. You can almost hear them running downstairs and through the rooms.
In the parlour stands a desk beneath a portrait of Patrick, who had two books published while living here. This room, furnished in Regency style, with the original fireplace, was where Maria entertained friends from the village.
Items found in the house during last year’s renovation are displayed in a cabinet, including handwritten homework, which had slipped behind a skirting board, by a girl who once lived there - she returned to the house this year, Charlotte revealed - a Corgi toy box and animal bones from when the property was a butcher’s shop, with slaughterhouse at the back.
The display reflects the history of the village, when its mills and houses were built in the mid-1800s. Pointing out a laudanum bottle, Charlotte tells of a Board of Health inspector in Thornton, horrified to find mothers giving their children opium as “infants preservative”.
There’s an 1812 workhouse coin, a pair of child’s clogs, spectacles and, in one display case, things that would have been dear to Maria, including a lace shawl and kid leather gloves. “Maria gets a bit lost in the family’s story, especially in Haworth. This house was her domain,” said Charlotte.
At the back is the kitchen, with original flagstones discovered by builders during the renovation, and the old wooden ceiling. The back stairs tell the story of Nancy De Garrs, selected by Patrick from the Bradford School of Industry, which trained girls for jobs in service. Nancy, 13, was nursemaid to the children and her sister Sarah, 12 was employed to help her. Nancy later became cook and housekeeper.
“It is in this room where the children would’ve got under their feet, and where they told them stories,” says Charlotte. “We know now that early years learning is so important. Both Nancy and Sarah were so influential on the Brontës, yet they get so little recognition.”
Upstairs, in Nancy and Sarah’s room, are dressing-up clothes and toys for today’s children to play with. “We do ‘laundry with Sarah De Garrs’ with school groups and quill and ink sessions,” says Charlotte.
The three main bedrooms are now available to stay in. Charlotte’s room is where the children slept. “This is the only room in the world that all the Brontës slept in,” says Charlotte. “We think there may have been a dressing-room here, as there were reports of Patrick seen at the window shaving.”
Emily’s bedroom was Patrick and Maria’s room, and Anne’s room is at the end of the landing, in the extension built after the Brontës’ time. At the original window, now restored, it is said the children could be seen, looking out for Patrick coming home. Each bedroom is beautifully furnished, with an en-suite bathroom.
“There’s been a lot of interest in overnight stays,” says Charlotte. “We’ve had guests from Canada and Japan. A man from Germany stood in Nancy’s room and cried; he was so moved that the house was finally restored.”
The tour ends in the education area and cafe. It was a pleasure to spend an hour with Charlotte - her passion for preserving and passing on the Brontë legacy really brought the house to life.
The Brontës left Thornton in 1820 but this house still feels like a warm family home. Ahead of a new era of Brontëmania, with February’s release of Emerald Fennel’s Wuthering Heights film, starring Margot Robbie, this modest mid-terrace house is a reminder that the story of Emily, Charlotte and Anne began here in Thornton. (Emma Clayton)
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