What do they know of curlews and Heathcliff?

Today's newsround is basically about the controversial project for a windfarm in Brontë country. From The Guardian:

“Heathcliff! It’s me, Cathy, I’m up by the wind turbines.” It’s not quite what Kate Bush had in mind, and probably not what Emily Brontë imagined when she wandered the bleak West Yorkshire moors and created Wuthering Heights.

But if one of Lancashire’s wealthiest men gets his way, vast swathes of moorland in Brontë country could become home to England’s biggest onshore windfarm.

Richard Bannister owns Boundary Outlet, a chain of discount shopping centres, as well as nine square miles of boggy moorland between Haworth and Hebden Bridge he uses for grouse shooting. He has joined forces with a Saudi-backed company to develop plans to turn the “wily, windy” moor into the Calderdale windfarm. [...]

There are concerns, too, of the effect on the lucrative literary tourist industry, with the Brontë Society saying the development would have “a significant and detrimental impact on an iconic local viewpoint and world-renowned landscape”.

Lydia Macpherson and Nick MacKinnon, both poets, live in the final farmhouse on the Haworth side of the moor, right on the Pennine Way. Every day, scores of walkers pass by, some wearing red dresses on Bush’s birthday.

Most head for the two lone sycamores marking the spot of Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse once owned by Macpherson’s ancestors, which many believe provided the inspiration for Wuthering Heights (in setting, if not architecture).

“People come from all over the world to see where Cathy and Heathcliff lived. Since the disgusting chainsawing of the Hadrian’s Wall tree, the two Top Withens sycamores are probably the best-loved in Britain,” said MacKinnon. “The developers are Saudis, so what do they know of curlews and Heathcliff, and why should they care?” (Helen Pidd)

And from Daily Mail:

The stunning landscape that inspired Wuthering Heights is the battleground in a showdown between literature lovers and a shopping tycoon.

Businessman Richard Bannister – a Lancastrian – is in partnership with a Saudi Arabia-backed company to transform the moors between West Yorkshire's Haworth and Hebden Bridge into England's largest onshore windfarm.

The project would see 65 towering turbines – each taller than Blackpool Tower – erected on the heath said to have inspired Emily Brontë to write her 1847 classic.

The ruined farmhouse of Top Withens, on the heath near Haworth, is said to be the origin of Cathy's home Wuthering Heights in the novel. (Tash Mosheim)

AnneBrontë.org focuses on Dr Teale's fateful visit to Anne Brontë on January 5th 1849 and which Ellen Nussey described:

‘Anne was looking sweetly pretty and flushed, and in capital spirits for an invalid. While consultations were going on in Mr Brontë‘s study, Anne was very lively in conversation, walking around the room surrounded by me. Mr Brontë joined us after Mr Teale’s departure and, seating himself on the couch, he drew Anne towards him and said, “My dear little Anne.” That was all – but it was understood.’

We have always found that so quietly sad and heartbreaking.