On Thursday 7th November 38 English Literature students and 3 members of staff participated in the annual English Department pilgrimage to Brontë – country in West Yorkshire. Leaving school at 6.00am was a shock for many but the journey up to Haworth past very quickly and the students were soon ready for their 5 mile hike across Haworth moor. Our bus driver left us at Stanbury and we set off into the wilderness to visit first the ruined farmhouse, ‘Top Withens’, believed to have been the inspiration for the setting of Wuthering Heights and then back via the Brontë waterfall via the Brontë Bridge. The moors were muddy and bleak and gave a very good flavour of the ‘Wuthering’ atmosphere created in the Brontë sisters’ novels, although we were lucky that the sun shone and it was a beautiful day. Thanks to the Yorkshire wind, however, we were still able to fully experience the ‘wild and windy moors’ immortalised by Kate Bush!
After the walk we went into the town of Haworth where buildings have remained largely unchanged since the Brontë’s time. Over lunch the students were entertained by the locals with tales of Branwell Brontë and then we were given a very informative talk and slide show by the education team at the Brontë Parsonage followed by a guided walk around Haworth and the vicinity which gave excellent insights into the social and historical background that informed the writing of the Brontë sisters. The students were particularly intrigued by all the details about the graveyard and what could be learnt from it about the health and social conditions of the early Victorian period.
The day finished with the opportunity to look round the Brontë Parsonage and examine the Brontë artefacts before embarking on the long journey home.
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