Haworth – home of the Brontës and much more
Ask anyone what Haworth is famous for and they will inevitably reply, "the Brontës." The village of Haworth is known the world over as former home of the Brontë family and has been drawing tourists to its narrow, cobbled streets for well over a century.
The three Brontë sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne – moved to its windswept hilltop parsonage as very young children with their brother, Branwell, from nearby Thornton after the death of their mother and two female siblings. It was whilst living at The Parsonage in Haworth that the sisters wrote their famous literary classics.
Their father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë, was vicar of St Michael and All Angels, just a stone's throw from The Parsonage, across the church yard, with its tall swaying trees and the ever-present caw of rooks.
The family were regular worshippers at St Michael's and, apart from Anne (who is buried high on a hill in a Scarborough church yard) they are buried in its crypt.
Today, their former home draws visitors like a magnet. For many, it's a place of pilgrimage, with literary enthusiasts arriving from all over the world, cameras at the ready, to catch their first view of the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
The house is still very much as it would have been during the Brontës time, when the sisters were busy writing such classics as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, drawing inspiration from the surrounding moorland.
Heading away from the Brontë Parsonage Museum, visitors can take in The Black Bull, where Branwell Brontë spent many an hour – his chair is still there - indulging in his fondness for ale.
As well as The Black Bull, there are several more public houses in Haworth to choose from and visitors certainly have no shortage of cafes, tea rooms and gift shops as they make their way down the steep, cobbled Main Street, past the delightful park and on down to the small railway station.
Haworth's station sits on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway. Trains on this wonderful preserved steam railway run from nearby Keighley, through Haworth and on to Oxenhope, where a timeless classic, The Railway Children, was filmed.
No matter what time of year, Haworth never fails to disappoint its many visitors, whether it's in Spring when the churchyard rooks are at their busiest and people throng for the 1940s weekend, or in the short November days when villagers, now dressed in Victorian costume, prepare to 'Scroggle the Holly' and the steep Main Street quietly twinkles with small Christmas trees.
