Whilst we were up in Yorkshire we could not go without a visit to Bronte country and of course the Bronte village of Haworth. It was a just the kind of day you would expect when exploring the Yorkshire Moors, dark, damp and rather misty.
First stop had to be the Bronte Parsonage where Charlotte, Emily and Ann were brough up together with their brother Branwell
Although not the largest of buildings it has to be one of the most interesting houses I have visited for a while and I came away having learnt things I never knew. It is really sad to see the family items from such a tragic family. I never knew that Charlotte was pregnant when she died. Very sad.
Apparantly the village itself had a very high mortality rate and it was all because (for those of you with a quesy constitution please do not read the next bit)... The Victorians decided that putting slabs of concrete on top of the graves was a good idea, in actual fact this meant that the natural evaporation of the bodily fluids that would occur through the earth could not happen and what actually happened was that they drained off into the earth and into the village water course - yuch. As you can see from the picture above the graveyard was packed to the gunnels with bodies, no room to spare there then. Fascinating stuff - I don't know about you but I love a bit of useless information.
Beautiful stained glass window in the church.
Of course no trip would be complete without a little shopping and this shop was absolutely fabulous selling old style sweets and beautiful luxury hand made bath items. I treated myself to some super foot soak...
The shop is as it was in the Bronte sisters time and it is actually the same shop that Branwell used to go to get his laudenam - no sign of any of that on sale I have to say.
Beautiful stained glass window in the church.
