Kirklees Council Selling Heritage: Red House Museum to be sold

The worst scenario for the Red House is slowly taking place. The Kirklees Council shows, once more, that they can only cope with the immediate future (the money they can cash in). The Examiner publishes:

Kirklees Council confirms Red House Museum to be sold
Council vows to protect historic site and denies it would let new homes be built on the site (...)
The former Red House Museum will be sold on the open market next year, Kirklees Council has confirmed.
Nothing had been heard about plans for the former museum for more than two years.
But ExaminerLive can now reveal council chiefs will not resume the asset transfer process and will instead opt to put the historic premises in Gomersal up for auction. (...)
Liversedge and Gomersal Tory, Clr Lisa Holmes, who was involved in a failed bid to pump £500,000 of private cash into taking the site over, told ExaminerLive she feared new housing or even a business would come in and take over the site.

A spokesperson said it may allow the occupation of the current buildings for residential use.

They said: "We are in the process of putting the site on the open market and this should happen next year.

"We will work to ensure that this historic site goes to someone who can deliver a suitable and sustainable long-term future for it.

"Beforehand, a planning application could be submitted for a change of use to residential.

"This would allow the existing buildings to be lived in but would not mean new homes being developed on the site.

"Any new development would require planning permission by Kirklees Council’s Planning Committee.

"The site’s historic significance would be considered when making any such decision."

Clr Holmes said sadly the people behind the petition were "wasting their time".

"It pains me to say it," she commented. "But I don't think the the asset transfer process will be revived.

"I don't agree with the process and what they did when they denied us.

"But I don't see them doing anything to reverse it, I'm just doing what I can to mitigate it.

"I'm horrified, there's no secret about that.

"But if they were going to work with us then they would have done it when I had a businessman willing to put up to half-a-million of his own money into making it into a really great facility.

"They turned down £1/2m of private investment."

The fight to save family home of pioneering and brave feminist Mary Taylor

Clr Holmes said she was fearful the cost of re-development would mean the site was more likely to be split in two, which could mean a new road to access the two barn type buildings to the rear of the site, which would affect local residents.

And she said she was also concerned about it being acquired for business use and the impact that would have on neighbouring properties. (Nick Lavigueur)

Jezebel posts about 'the perfect terror of the white nightgown':

When Jane Eyre first meets her predecessor in Rochester’s affections, she almost mistakes her for an apparition, or maybe a “German vampire”—something already dead, dressed for burial. The sinister Bertha wears a “white and straight” garment, either a “gown, sheet, or shroud.” Whether she’s breathing or wailing, the White Woman is tragic and, even when she’s given a wee bit of agency, there’s a sense that she is somewhat powerless. She didn’t choose her sadness or her madness. It chose her. (Katy Kelleher)

Kevan Manwaring is cycling over Derbyshire. Derbyshire Life covers the Matlock-Edale ride:

Robin Hood and Jane Eyre, a picturesque 'plague village', and steam trains - what's not to like on this early autumnal cycle ride through the White Peaks and Hope Valley? (...)
Hathersage Jane Eyre & her Merry Men
Rejoice! You are now in the Hope Valley, and there are no more significant hills. Before you push onto the final destination, I would recommend stopping at the charming tea shop by the crossroads, Cintra's. Suitably refreshed, spend a little time exploring the churchyard up Hungry Lane: there you'll find graves in memory of the Eyres (who inspired Charlotte), and Little John's Grave no less. If you wish to discover more about Hathersage's connection with Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre then consider following the Jane Eyre Hathersage Trail (see link below).
For those with iron thighs, it's worth pedalling up to the breathtakingly photogenic Stanage Edge to visit the amazing Robin Hood's Cave. You can recreate a scene from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice film, which was filmed here, but watch the drop!

The novelist Kate Weinberg talks about her life in Herald Publicist:

I recognized with the heroines, particularly the orphans and misfits. I cried in coming-of-age novels similar to Jane Eyre and The Catcher within the Rye (sic) as I by no means appeared to cry in actual life.

The Concordian and 'the downside of reading':

Granted, I have a more realistic notion of love now than I had at the age of 15, when everything was as passionate as Wuthering Heights, and everyone as chaste as Elizabeth and Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. (Youmna El Halabi)

Costume drama dressing is autumn's biggest trend according to The Telegraph:

Everything from the set design to costumes and hair has played into the new line, which features pearl drop earrings (Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring earrings), a tiny twinkly Little Women ring and (more pearls) Wuthering Heights earrings. (Bethan Holt)

The Boar and the romance genre:

Romantic love is presented as the centre of one’s life as opposed to an (albeit important) facet of it. Such a notion is rooted in sexism as Cathy’s marriage to Edgar marks an exchange of human property in Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and the respectability of Tess’ marriage determines her worth as an individual in society within Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. (Charlotte Anne Creamore)

Les Inrockuptibles (France) reviews the documentary Kate Bush, la sorcière du son:

A 19 ans, la jeune Kate Bush, élevée à la musique par ses frères et épaulée par David Gilmour des Pink Floyd (un ami d'un ami qui est tombé raide dingue de sa voix) signe chez EMI et déboule avec Wuthering Heights, hommage aux Hauts de Hurlevent, d'Emily Brontë, avec les prénoms de Cathy et de Heathcliff rythmant tout le morceau. (Carole Boinet) (Translation) 

La Nación (Argentina) reviews The Testaments by Margaret Atwood:

A través de sus reflexiones, que incluyen admoniciones a un "querido lector" deudor de Jane Eyre -entre sus obras prohibidas preferidas- se revelan detalles de la creación de Gilead y del rol fundamental de Lydia en la creación de las leyes que segregaron los estamentos femeninos, acercándola a una antiheroína de aquellas que se han convertido en una presencia habitual en la pantalla de Tony Soprano en adelante. Solo queda comenzar el casting. (Translation)

Actualno (in Bulgarian) publishes an excerpt of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.  A bizarre Brontë reference in an article about wrestling on TWM. Online Eccentric Librarian reviews Charlotte Brontë before Jane Eyre by Glynnis Fawkes.