Spending the night in Brontë-related places

Yorkshire Live takes it for granted that the Red House will become 'a holiday destination and wedding venue'.

Council chiefs in Kirklees say investing in a listed historical building with connections to the Brontës will ensure it has a long-term future whilst remaining in public ownership.

There was cross-party support for a plan to turn Gomersal’s Red House, formerly a museum, into a short-term holiday destination and intimate wedding venue.

In proposing the £600,000 project to Kirklees Council ’s Cabinet on Tuesday, senior councillor Graham Turner described it as “something of a departure on how we would normally deal with assets that we can no longer afford to keep, and which we have no strategic need for.”

The Grade II* listed 19th century manor house will be comprehensively refurbished and sympathetically remodelled to become a five-star high-end luxury holiday home for commercial holiday letting, accommodating 10 people within five bedrooms to be let as a single holiday cottage unit. [...]

The handover could be as soon as March 2022 with the house open for holidays in April.

The project has received cross-party support. Clr David Hall, a Gomersal member and also leader of the Conservative group on the council, said turning it over to part commercial use represented “an imaginative solution”.

He and his colleagues Lisa Holmes and Michelle Grainger-Mead previously referred to Red House as “the heritage jewel in Gomersal’s crown”.

Clr Turner added: “It’s important that we recognise that this project has been a challenge due to its complexity and its historical links with the Brontës, but I am sure that this will be a great success and will pave the way forward on how we deal with similar buildings in the future.

“I suspect that other local authorities will be keeping a keen eye on this, as it’s truly groundbreaking for a local authority to develop this type of project.”

The site will not be completely devoted to commercial hires. Community access to the house and gardens will be offered over a series of managed and curated events and open days thus allowing the public to enjoy the house and grounds.

With its connections to Charlotte Brontë , who stayed at Red House and renamed it ‘Briarmains’ in her 1849 novel Shirley, the site is expected to have broad appeal. (Tony Earnshaw)

Post and Courier reviews the USC stage production of You On the Moors Now.

The play imagines iconic heroines of 19th century literature rebelling from their scripted destiny, in defiance of their suitors. [...]

Jo (from Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women”), Lizzie (from Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”), Cathy (from Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights”) and Jane (Charlotte Brontë’s titular “Jane Eyre”) have all been hailed for their creators’ respective depictions of independent women who resist the expectations placed on them by the mores of their era. Here, the playwright has extended the concept one giant leap farther, with the foursome meeting on the desolate moors where the Brontë sisters’ novels transpire, and establishing a militant, feminist collective far from the madding pleas and demands of their would-be lovers, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochester, Heathcliff and Theodore “Laurie” Laurence.

While the women bonded over s’mores around a cozy campfire, the men were quickly revealed to be petty bullies and insecure cry-babies. That in itself might make for an amusing and intriguing storyline, but plotting among some of the source material’s supporting characters led to all-out warfare, and a somber conclusion that called for reconciliation, and suggested that some destinies cannot be avoided.

The strength of USC’s undergraduate acting program was on full display here, with Susan Swavely as a spunky Jo, Sydni Brown frenzied as destitute Jane, Emma James elegant as Lizzie, and Zoe Chan appropriately volatile as Cathy, until unavoidable plot developments rendered her serene and omniscient. Recent graduate John Romanski convincingly played decades older than his actual age as the tortured Rochester, and Cameron Eubanks nearly stole every scene he was in as the spoiled, temperamental Laurie. [...]

And while one doesn’t need to have read all of the source novels to understand the cultural and symbolic significance of the unattainable Mr. Darcy or the bad-boy Heathcliff, I fear many jokes, inside references and important plot devices were simply lost on anyone who didn’t remember who the Binghams, St. John Rivers or Marmee might be, and how they influence the lives of the main characters. (August Krickell)

Jane Eyre is on the list of '10 Creepiest Gothic Novels' put together by Publishers' Weekly.

2. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Jane Eyre is celebrated on many grounds: its insightful portrayal of childhood, its passionate proto-feminism, the heart-stopping romance of its central love story, to name but a few. I love it for all these reasons, but I also love it because it is Properly Creepy. I still get goosebumps when I imagine Jane waking at night to the sound of malevolent laughter outside her bedroom door. As with any self-respecting horror story, the reality of Jane’s situation is murky: is Thornfield Hall haunted by a ghost, or a would-be murderer, or is the mystery a trick of Jane’s mind, a symptom of her own dark desires? The scene that stays with me most vividly takes place shortly before Jane’s wedding, when she wakes at night to find an unknown woman standing in front of the mirror, wearing her bridal veil... It’s a gothic masterclass. (Elizabeth Brooks)

Bookish questions for writer Helen Oyeyemi on Elle:

[The book that]

...I brought on a momentous trip:

This was probably the very best night of my life so far: the night I got to sleep over at the Brontë parsonage in Haworth !!!! (I still can’t quite believe it actually happened.) I was too keyed up to sleep properly. I was in a room situated between Emily and Charlotte’s bedrooms, lying in a four poster bed frame that had belonged to their father, and it just felt like my heart had grabbed my brain by the elbow and was just galloping around and around with it. Luckily I had [Jorge Luis] Borges’ Collected Fictions (translated by Andrew Hurley) on my e-reader, and they kept me company until my eyes closed…and probably afterwards, too. (Riza Cruz)

A misguided sweeping statement from Vogue Australia.

But while the existing understanding of romance novels held by those unfamiliar with the genre tends to be limited to old world prose penned by the likes of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, or pulp novels filled with high levels of lust and not much else, the romance books of today find a happy medium between the two aforementioned extremes. (Ana Eksoucian-Cavadas)

Prima recommends the '10 best summer holidays for 2021', including

6 Walk to spectacular views and charming villages of the Yorkshire Dales

summer holidays

A summer holiday in Yorkshire offers the perfect opportunity to get back to nature, stretch your legs after months of being cooped up at home and discover beautiful new places.

Exploring the rolling hills of the Yorkshire Dales, taking scenic rail journeys and getting to know quaint market towns is an invigorating way to celebrate the end of travel restrictions.

During Prima's five-day walking and railway staycation, you can ride the Embassy and Bolton Abbey Railway, embark on a Brontë-themed walk across Yorkshire's wild moors and be treated to more stunning scenery on a Penine Bridleway walk from £549 per person.

When? August 2021 (Roshina Jowaheer)

And The Telegraph and Argus recommends camping near Wuthering Heights Inn.

Wuthering Heights Inn

As you can guess from the name, this site in Stanbury, Keighley, is in the heart of Brontë Country.

You are in the perfect place to explore the area where Charlotte, Emily and Anne lived and were inspired to write their timeless novels, from the unspoiled moors and Dales to the village of Haworth and all the surrounding areas.

As the name also suggests, there is a pub right on hand to keep you fed and watered (or beered) with a selection of food and drink.

For camping prices start at £15, and it also has two shepherd’s huts for glamping at £55 a night. (David Jagger)