Not so much a walk as a pilgrimage. That is certainly how many of those who slog up this section of the Pennine Way regard the trek from Stanbury up and over Wadsworth Moor in West Yorkshire.
For this is the path to Top Withens, the magnificently bleak — and now ruined — farmhouse which was the inspiration for one of the greatest classic novels in English literature.
Emily Brontë gave it the name 'Wuthering Heights', home of the heroine Cathy Earnshaw. Though the author would superimpose a grander fictional mansion on this spot, the setting has not changed since the book appeared in 1847.
It is the last remnant of a dwelling before you really are out on the 'wily, windy moors' — as Kate Bush described the scene in her brilliant 1978 debut single of the same name, one which introduced Wuthering Heights to an entirely new, late 20th century audience.
It is a delightful — though some might say 'spooky' or even 'Gothic' — coincidence that both Brontë and Bush were born on the very same day exactly 140 years apart. To this day, fans of both still flock up here on July 30 by way of homage. But will they in years to come?
Such passions go some way to explain the sense of utter incredulity following the submission of a new proposal to build England's largest onshore wind farm on this very spot.
If the scheme is approved, much of the North of England — from Preston and Manchester to Harrogate — will be able to see the monster, new-generation turbines earmarked for these hills. Protest groups are quick to point out that the wind turbines in question, at up to 650ft high, would not only be more than 100ft taller than the Blackpool Tower but, on a clear day, you would be able to see them from the Blackpool. Tower. Put another way, each of these will be ten times taller than the Angel of the North statue at Gateshead. And the current plan involves, wait for it, 65 of them. [...]
For many living in and around towns and villages like Haworth, home to the Brontës, or Hebden Bridge, location for the hit drama Happy Valley, the wind farm threatens a gross intrusion into daily life. It doesn't help that the whole thing is being proposed by a faceless Saudi company which does not divulge so much as a telephone number and directs callers to an email address in Madrid.
Even the greenest of eco-warriors will grudgingly concede that this scheme is unlikely to win hearts and minds to the wind energy cause. I've known oil spills with better PR.
The proposal is so big that it is being fought across constituency and council boundaries, though it is Labour-run, Halifax-based Calderdale Council that will process the formal application.
At present, the plans are at the 'scoping report' stage, with years to go before the first — if any — turbines see the light of day. Although the initial reports have only surfaced in recent weeks, two well-organised action groups are already up and running on either side of the moors.
'It's not about the environment. It's all about money,' says Lydia Macpherson, a poet who lives in the nearest home to Top Withens — it is another 40-minute walk up the hill to the ruins. She feels passionately about this landscape since several generations of her family were tenant farmers battling against the elements at Top Withens, all through the Bronte period. 'Emily Brontë lived at the parsonage and the parsonage knew everyone in those days,' says Lydia.
Her family left at some point around 1900 in pursuit of a marginally more comfortable life down the valley.
On a perishing afternoon we meet in her kitchen with a small posse of locals who are all invested in what is now known as 'Bronte country' for different reasons.
Lydia's partner, poet and retired Winchester schoolmaster Nick MacKinnon, says Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath were both inspired by the majesty of the moors.
Johnnie Briggs, a tour guide who runs 'Brontë Walks', tells me how people from around the world are enthralled by this spot. 'They come for the sound of birdsong, wind and water,' he explains. [...]
Maybe it is time for Kate Bush to rework her great 1978 hit.
Altogether now: 'I'm coming home to Shuddering, Shuddering Heights...' (Robert Hardman)
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