Heathcliff’s Birthplace

Those of you who know me well will know that I love both literature and being outdoors.  So when I was deciding where to spend my Easter weekend, I decided to combine these two things and headed to Haworth, West Yorkshire.  There was plenty to draw me there – the moors, which I had always wanted to see; the fact that Haworth was the home of the Bronte sisters; and even a small branch line steam railway (which for me is like catnip).  The combination was irresistable, so I was on the train to Leeds by 9:00 a.m. on Good Friday with my camera, good walking boots, and some knitting to pass the travel time.

My first reward was the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway (that’s KEEF-lee, by the way), which I figure is probably the most fun train ride around.  It is entirely run by volunteers, which means you can train (no pun intended) to be a conductor, engineer or signalman.  How much fun is that?

I adored every ashy, sooty, steamy, windblown second of the train ride (windblown because my head was sticking out the window most of the time), and would take it every day if I could.  I didn’t want to alight at Haworth.

But of course I did, and I stayed at the gorgeously comfortable Ashmount Country House, where I had a big four-poster bed and a view out over the village and was awoken by birdsong every morning.  And I tried black pudding for the first time, and liked it.

I wanted to get the tourist stuff over with first so I went to the Bronte Parsonage Museum the first day.  Here it is:

I learned a lot about the Brontes at that museum and highly recommend it if you have the least amount of interest in any of the Brontes.  Who knew that Charlotte had such a withering wit, or that Emily learned German while making bread, or that the Reverend wanted to learn how to tell a porter to carry his trunk to his hotel room in French?  Not the least interesting thing I learned was what a sanded floor is (if you don’t know the Jane Eyre reference, you clearly need to read it again).

But what I really wanted to understand was what inspired the Brontes, and here it is.

The moor must surely be the source of all that is wild, passionate, dark, and stormy in the Brontes’ writing.  It was something that I had pictured but could not fully understand until I was there, on the moor, myself.  There is something almost primeval there that clarifies and inspires – it inspired me, even during my brief visit.  I would love to be on the tops during a storm, to see the rain battering the deep heather and the wind twisting the trees.  That would be the best time on the moor, I think.

The moors are omnipresent in the Brontes’ writing, even when they are not mentioned themselves.  The moor is a mood, a feeling, an injection of vigour.  Heathcliff may have been found wandering the streets of Liverpool, but he was born here.

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