Threat to Brontë Moors

 OVENDEN WIND FARM REPOWER THREATENS BRONTË MOORS

E.On, trading as Yorkshire Wind Power Ltd, have now submitted an application for planning permission to repower Ovenden Moor Wind Farm.  The 23 turbines currently in use and visible from parts of Haworth and the moorlands will, if the application succeeds, be replaced by nine structures 115m high.  At such a height they would, potentially, be visible from as far afield as Harrogate, Wetherby and Tadcaster, places over 35km distant.  Seen from Top Withens, they would appear enormous, and would dominate the whole landscape. 

In accordance with the Brontë Society’s heritage and conservation policy, an objection to the application has been submitted to Calderdale Council, the full text of which is given below.

Planning & Regeneration Services

Calderdale Council

Town Hall

Halifax

West Yorkshire

HX1 1UJ

16^th August 2012

 Dear Sirs,

re:  Planning application 12/00955/WDF

      Yorkshire Wind Power Ltd

       Repowering of wind farm including construction and operation of nine wind

       turbines (up to 115m to blade tip), construction of access tracks, crane

       hardstanding, temporary construction compound, underground cabling to

       network, new control building with substation and anemometer, to replace

       existing twenty three wind turbines, substation, control building and

       anemometer masts.

       Ovenden Moor Wind Farm Cold Edge Road Wainstalls Halifax Calderdale

The Brontë Society wishes to state its strong objection to the above proposal on the following grounds:-

1)     The damaging impact of the wind turbines on the character of the Worth Valley watershed, a culturally and historically unique landscape.

2)     The adverse effect on tourism and the local economy.

The Worth Valley watershed includes those stretches of moorland and specific locations which are associated with the Brontë family and most particularly with the writings of Emily Brontë.  They are culturally and historically unique and they form an internationally recognised part of England’s heritage.  They also include sections of The Brontë Way and The Pennine Way.  The turbines currently in operation at Ovenden Moor are visible from many parts of the watershed and their visual impact is unfortunate and inappropriate.  However, the current proposal would introduce to the skyline man-made structures of such increased size that they could, potentially, be seen from as far away as Harrogate and Tadcaster.  Seen from all areas of the watershed moorlands they would appear as overwhelming features in the landscape and would diminish the perception of its scale and remoteness.  In an empty landscape even small turbines have a dominating effect and the movement of the blades draws the eye, making them impossible to ignore.  The far greater size of the proposed turbines would have a defining and hugely detrimental influence upon the character of the landscape and its setting.  The validity of this objection takes into account the judgement made by Mrs Justice Lang in May, 2012 in a case brought by SLP Energy regarding Hemsby, Norfork.  The judgement states that “concern about harm to the landscape was on balance more important that the national need for renewable energy”.

The area known as Brontë Country, which includes Haworth and its associated moorlands, was formerly a region whose economy was based mainly upon small-scale agriculture and textiles.  Since the demise of the textile industry the area has become increasingly reliant on the tourism generated by its literary and heritage associations.  The Brontës and their works have, over the last 160 years, inspired worldwide interest which has, more recently, been fuelled by film and television adaptations of their lives and their novels.  This interest has resulted in a flow of visitors to Haworth not merely from Britain but from all parts of the world.   They come to see for themselves something of the village and the countryside in which the Brontës lived and which influenced their work.  They come to see open, empty moorlands unaffected by dominant structures.  Any development which affects the foundations of this literary tourism inevitably affects the local economy.

 The current, inappropriate presence of wind turbines is known to have an adverse effect upon the visitor experience.  A letter to the Daily Telegraph in May 2012, stated “Sadly, anyone who now goes on the Brontë tourist trail will be greeted by wind turbines.  Brontë Country is no longer worth visiting.” (S. Mowbray)  The far greater impact of the current proposal has the potential to cause a decline in visitor numbers leading to decreased incomes from businesses which rely on this tourism and, indeed, the failure of businesses.  Claims that the repowering of Ovenden Moor wind farm will provide local jobs are unfounded as once the construction (by specialist teams) is complete, turbines are remotely monitored, and maintained by very few individuals.  Any jobs created would be minimal and mainly temporary.  The positive impact on the local economy would be negligible and of very little importance compared with the negative effect the proposal would have upon the tourist industry.

The Brontë Society submits that the pre-existence of turbines at Ovenden Moor should have no bearing on the decision of the Planning Committee in respect of the current proposal, and reiterates that, because of its scale and location, the repowering would result in material harm to the character and appearance of the Worth Valley watershed and to the local economy, such harm far outweighing any supposed benefits.

 As a charity it is not appropriate for us to mount a petition nor, in this case, would that be helpful as no matter how many signatures are collected, it would count only as a single objection.  We would ask that, if you wish to support the Society in this, you send your comments to Calderdale Council by post, email or online as follows, in all cases quoting planning application 12/00955/WDF.  The consultation period, during which comments will be accepted, ends on 7^th September.

By post:

Planning & Regeneration Services

Calderdale Council

Town Hall

Halifax

West Yorkshire

HX1 1UJ

By email:

town.planning@calderdale.gov.uk

Online:

http://portal.calderdale.gov.uk/online-applications/applicationDetails.do?activeTab=makeComment&keyVal=M8654ODW0DW00

In order to comment online you must register and log in first.  Please ignore any notice on the website to the effect that comments are not being accepted at this time.  Calderdale Council have given an assurance that this is not the case.

Call for Papers

29 JANUARY 2013 - Call for papers: ‘Re-Visioning the Brontës’, University of Leeds conference in conjunction with the exhibitions, ‘Wildness Between the Lines’ and ‘Visions of Angria’

Recent adaptations and interpretations of the Brontës’ lives and works through film, art, literature and theatre raise questions about the continuing fascination with these literary figures, as well as highlighting the wider potential for artistic intervention or collaboration between artworks and audiences. Similarly, it is through innovative contemporary arts programmes that organisations like the Brontë Parsonage Museum and the Brontë Society seek to move beyond simple ‘caricatures’ of the family and encourage diverse audience engagement.

This one day cross-disciplinary conference will explore the recent ‘re-visioning’ of the Brontës through critically examining artistic responses and interpretations of their work. The conference will address ways in which the legacy of the Brontës is exerting an influence in a range of creative fields, and across a variety of media.

A collaboration between the Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery and the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies, the conference is taking place to coincide with two exhibitions. The first, ‘Wildness Between the Lines’, at Leeds College of Art, brings together the work of a wide range of artists who have been influenced by the Brontës. ‘Visions of Angria’, at the Stanley and Audrey Burton Gallery, showcases Brontë material from the University of Leeds Special Collections, accompanied by illustrations from students at Leeds College of Art.

This theme lends itself to a broad field of research and practice. Submissions are welcomed from academics, artists, research students and professionals, and the format is not restricted to formal papers. Topics for discussion might include, but are not limited to:

The Brontës’ influence in contemporary culture

Creative adaptations or reinterpretations of the Brontës’ lives and works

Curatorial interpretations of the Brontës

The myth and legacy of the Brontës

Responses to exhibitions of Brontë material

Representations of the Brontës in literary biographies

Confirmed speakers include Jane Sellars (Curator of Art, Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate) and Professor Blake Morrison (Goldsmiths, University of London) in conversation with Dr Richard Brown (University of Leeds). Please email submissions, including a title, 400 word abstract and CV, to: bronte.revision@gmail.com by no later than Friday, 28 September 2012. Successful applicants will be notified by the 30 November 2012. Further questions are welcomed at this address.

Image: The life of Feild [sic] Marshal the Right Honourable Alexan[d]er Percy, autograph manuscript, 1835 by Patrick Branwell Brontë, University of Leeds Library Special Collections.

Thornton event

Margaret Berry writes:
St James's Church in Thornton is celebrating the  400th Anniversary of the Old Bell Chapel this year.  Following on from the Art Competition in June, the famous Yorkshire artist Ashley Jackson will demonstrate his painting techniques at the Chapel on 5 September at 10.30am.


Ashley Jackson rarely gives demonstrations, so this is a great opportunity to see him working. The event will last an hour and a half. Tickets  are £5, available from the Churchwarden,  Steve Stanworth:  
07786 02889      s.stanworth@hotmail.co.uk

Sympathy for poor governesses

News Release:

New Charlotte Brontë letter at Parsonage Museum betrays her sympathy for poor governesses.

An important letter has returned to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, 150 years after Charlotte Brontë wrote it there.

Miss Mary Holmes was a struggling writer and musician originally from Gargrave, North Yorkshire, who wrote to Charlotte for advice on her book. She worked as music teacher to the daughters of novelist William Thackeray, author of Vanity Fair, and he had already kindly found someone to review the book in a national newspaper, as well as offering to help pay for it to be privately printed. Thackeray passed on Charlotte’s address so that Miss Holmes could send it to the now-famous Haworth author for some advice – they came from villages just 20 miles apart.

Charlotte’s response, dated 22 April 1852, and sent from the Parsonage in Haworth, was friendly and encouraging – which was not always the case: the author of Jane Eyre, by now a bestselling literary star, could be dismissive of fellow authors seeking advice. Either she was keen to do Thackeray a favour, though, or she spotted genuine talent in Miss Holmes’s work, for she wrote that the book: seems to [me] very clever and very learned. You erred in telling me to skip the first chapters; I am glad I disobeyed the injunction.

Miss Holmes has clearly mentioned in her letter to Charlotte that she has worked as a governess. Charlotte replies: You are right in supposing that I must feel a degree of interest in the details of a Governess-life. That life has on me the hold of actual experience; to all who live it – I cannot but incline with a certain sympathy; and any kind feeling they express for me – comes pleasantly and meets with grateful acceptance.

This is, of course, the same Charlotte, who, in 1839 wrote to her friend Ellen Nussey about life as a governess: I will only ask you to imagine the miseries of a reserved wretch like me - thrown at once into the midst of a large Family - proud as peacocks and wealthy as Jews.

Charlotte herself had not always had a favourable response when writing to the literary stars of the day for advice. The poet laureate Robert Southey famously wrote to her: ‘Literature cannot be the business of a woman’s life, and it ought not to be’

Bronte Parsonage Museum Director Andrew McCarthy commented on the new acquisition:

In 1852 Charlotte was riding the crest of her success; life was very different from when she too had been a struggling governess. Of all the Brontës Charlotte was probably the most ambitious; a letter such as this gives a quick glimpse into what it meant for her to have achieved the fame she had sought for so long.

The letter was purchased from an auction at Bonham’s in London on 12 June 2012.

It will be displayed from early 2013.

Join the Friends of Red House Museum

Red House and Gardens in Gomersal is holding at an evening drinks reception on Wednesday July 11 for people interested in forming a Friends of Red House group.

 

The event at 6.30pm will start with drinks served in the beautiful and historic setting of the main house with costumed period characters on hand in the house and gardens to provide information about the history of Red House and the people who lived in and visited it.

 

There will be information about the kinds of activities a Friends group could get involved in, as well as information from Kirklees Museums and Galleries, Red House staff and members of the local community.

 

Cllr Jean Calvert, Cabinet member for Wellbeing and Communities, said: “This is a great opportunity for people to support their local museum by getting more involved and Red House and its gardens will benefit from their help.”

 

 Anyone interested in helping to form a Friends group is welcome to attend the event and should telephone 01274 335100 to reserve a place.

Bestselling novelist Victoria Hislop to visit Haworth

Bestselling novelist Victoria Hislop will be visiting Haworth next week to read from and discuss her work and latest novel, The Thread. The event takes place on the evening of Thursday 5 July at 7.30pm at the West Lane Baptist Centre in Haworth, and forms part of the Parsonage's contemporary arts programme.

Victoria Hislop’s first two novels, The Island and The Return, were Sunday Times number one bestsellers and have been translated into more than twenty languages. She won the Newcomer of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2007 and the Richard & Judy Summer Read competition. Her third novel, The Thread was published in November 2011. 

Victoria Hislop is a great admirer of the Brontës, especially Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and she has written the introduction for the White’s edition of the novel. She has previously described Wuthering Heights as “the book that changed me…it woke me up”.

Tickets for the event cost £6 and can be booked from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188

Ovenden Moor Wind Farm

At some point during late summer or early autumn, E.ON, the company which operates the wind farm on Ovenden Moor, will submit a planning application to Calderdale District Council for permission to repower the installation.  Their intention is to reduce the number of turbines from the current twenty-two to nine.  However, these nine turbines will be considerably larger than those currently visible from Haworth Moor.  At 115m they will have a significant detrimental  visual impact on the landscape.

E.ON are holding Open Days at Ovenden on Friday, 6 and Saturday, 7 July from 10am to 4.30pm when the public can visit the wind farm and see the plans for the repowering.  It will also be an opportunity to express opinions about the proposals.

A representative of the Brontë Society will be attending on one of the days to discuss the plans with E.ON.

Full details of the repowering proposals and the Open Days can be found at http://www.eon-uk.com/generation/ovendenmoorrepower.aspx

Contact details for E.ON are as follows:-

By post:

Ovenden Moor Wind Farm

FREEPOST

RRSE-KZCU-AZJL

E.ON

Westwood Business Park

Westwood Way

Coventry    CV4 8LG

By email:

ovendenmoor@eon-uk.com

By phone:

0800 096 1199

Andrew McCarthy

News Release:

Brontë Museum Director to take up new role in Bradford

It has been announced that Director at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, Andrew McCarthy, will soon be leaving Haworth to take up a new position with Artworks Creative Communities in Bradford.

Andrew has been based at the Parsonage for fourteen years; as Education Officer, Audience Development Manager and Deputy Director, eventually being appointed museum Director in July 2008. He initially developed the museum’s education programme and was responsible for several large scale arts education projects in Haworth including The Wind on the Moors, involving four Bradford ‘link’ schools from diverse communities in the city, working with a librettist, composer and professional team of musicians to create a new opera based on the Brontës’ lives which was performed at St Michael & All Angels Church. 

Andrew was also responsible for initiating the museum’s contemporary arts programme which launched in 2006 with an exhibition of work by the British, Turner-prize nominated artist, Cornelia Parker, who was commissioned to create new work in response to the museum and its collection. The programme, which has received funding support from Arts Council England and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation, has brought many well established writers and artists to Haworth in recent years, as well as giving opportunities to emerging, regional creative talent. The programme includes regular readings and events with visiting authors (including an annual Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing). There are also workshops, drop-in activities and special projects, aimed at encouraging visitors to respond to the museum through creative activity, and residencies with writers and artists working with community groups.

As Director, Andrew also delivered a phased programme of development at the museum which saw a major refurbishment of its main exhibition space, and a Heritage Lottery Funded project to re-case, redisplay and re-interpret the museum’s collection in the historic rooms of the house. This programme is due to be completed in January 2013 when the Parsonage will be redecorated following an extensive programme of decorative archaeological analysis aimed at reinstating a more authentic Brontë decorative scheme.

During his time as Director, the museum’s collection has grown significantly, visitor numbers have increased, and despite the challenging economic environment, the past three years have seen the museum deliver successive operating surpluses, after a long period of financial instability.

Andrew McCarthy has achieved a great deal during his time with the Bronte Society and will leave the Parsonage Museum and its public programmes in a position of strength going forward.   The Society wishes Andrew every success in his new post with Artworks.  Andrew is passionate about improving access to the arts and whilst he will be sorely missed we are delighted to think we might look forward to potential collaborations between the Bronte Parsonage Museum and Artworks in the future. 

Sally McDonald – Chairman of the Brontë Society

Andrew will be leaving Haworth in July to take up the role of Operations Director with Bradford based Artworks Creative Communities. Artworks, now based at the Delius Arts & Cultural Centre in Great Horton Road, was established in 1998 and has developed a significant regional reputation for innovative projects that use creativity as a force for change. Working with professional artists and in partnership with communities, organizations and businesses, Artworks develop and deliver exciting projects that use participation in the arts as a tool to inspire, connect and engage those who tend to be excluded from participation in culture and the arts.

The Artworks Team is greatly looking forward to welcoming Andrew to his new post just in time to help us celebrate our one year anniversary of moving into the Delius Arts & Cultural Centre. Andrew’s dedication to the arts is evident through his work with the Bronte Parsonage Museum and the legacy he will leave there.

Estelle Cooper – Artworks Creative Communities

Contacts & Further Information:                             

Andrew McCarthy - Director, Brontë Parsonage Museum -  01535 640194/ 07445 883455 - andrew.mccarthy@bronte.org.uk

June Weekend - Excursion to Haddon Hall

IMS writes:

‘It was a fine Autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields: I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. Battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.’

'Farther off were hills: not so lofty as those round Lowood, nor so craggy, but yet quiet and lonely hills enough.’

The Monday excursion for Brontë Society members was to Haddon Hall, a building built of gritstone and limestone, on the banks of the River Wye in Derbyshire - one of the seats of the Duke of Rutland. The hall has been the setting for many films - one of the earliest based there was the 1924 film starring Mary Pickford - Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. This film tells the romantic story of how Dorothy eloped with John Manners in 1563. The Manners family still hold the seat today. Haddon has played cameo roles in Pride and Prejudice and The Other Boleyn Girl  but it was the fact that the hall has been used for three Jane Eyre productions that occasioned a coach from Haworth to travel from motorway to motorway, pass the leaning steeple in Chesterfield and to pull into the car park just outside the town of Bakewell - famous for its puddings and tarts.

We were met by one of the guides who welcomed us to the Hall and who then led us through the narrow gate house and, after warning us of the very uneven ground all around, directed us towards the chapel.

‘We entered the quiet and humble temple’. All was still: The strangers had slipped in before us, they viewed the old time-stained marble tomb.’

Our very knowledgeable guide explained that film directors Fukunaga and Zefferelli and the BBC production which starred the suave Toby Stephens and the pulchritudinous Ruth Wilson had all used the inside of the chapel which, with a Norman pillar and font and Norman lancet windows, has some of the earliest masonry of the Hall. A marble copy effigy of the eighth Duke who died at the age of nine lies in the chapel and all around the walls are fresco-seccos from the early fifteenth century. Similarly, we were told, they had all used the fourteenth century kitchen which houses the only Tudor dresser in the world. Scorch marks on the timber partition walls show where candles and rushes were used for lighting.

‘The steps and banisters were of oak; the staircase window was high and latticed; both it and the long gallery looked as if they belonged to a church rather than a house.’

‘Traversing the long and matted gallery I descended the slippery steps of oak.’

We were taken into the Long Gallery which would have been used for exercise when the weather outside was inclement and the guide explained that the diamond shaped panes in the windows are set at different angles to maximise the use of the daylight. It was interesting to hear that when filming was taking place it was very cold in the Long Gallery- it being more or less impossible to heat- and the actors had to suck ice cubes so that their breath would not be seen on film.

‘It was burnt down just about harvest time. A dreadful calamity. The fire broke out at dead of night, and before the engines arrived from Millcote the building was one mass of flame. It was a terrible spectacle.’

Our guide recalled that when the BBC decided to use pyrotechnics, smoke machines, and lighted pokers in the windows to make the fire at Thornfield really realistic the local fire brigade - who had happily been warned in advance- received over one hundred calls.

‘And then they called to him that she was on the roof; where she was standing, waving her arms, above the battlements, and shouting.’

‘We saw him approach her; and then she yelled and gave a spring and the next minute she lay smashed on the pavement.’ 

We were taken outside and the part of the roof from where the stunt person playing Bertha jumped was pointed out to us. Apparently scaffolding had had to be erected and the person jumped the thirty feet on to an airbag. It looked as if it would have been quite an ordeal to jump from those battlements but at ten pounds a foot maybe it was worth it - however not for me!

‘No nook in the grounds more sheltered and more Eden-like; it was full of trees, it bloomed with flowers:’

We wandered in the beautiful gardens and looked down on the footbridge - seen in all the films- where Sir John Manners was waiting to whisk Dorothy away from the Hall all those years ago and we saw the meadow at the side of the river where in the BBC production Mr Rochester and Jane picnic.

It was a most enjoyable day spent at Haddon - I am sure I will not be the only one watching the DVD of the latest film version of  Jane Eyre once again and saying “I’ve been there!”

June Weekend - Excursion to Guiseley

On Sunday afternoon a minibus transported Brontë Society members to Guiseley Parish Church where nearly two hundred years ago Patrick Brontë married Maria Branwell.

The building has changed considerably since the first church was founded in the twelfth century and the oak box pews Patrick and Maria would have sat in are no longer there. However it was good to see the communion rails the couple would have seen and the plaque commemorating their marriage, which names the famous writers Charlotte, Emily and Anne as their daughters.

June weekend - Sunday Walks

A Walk to Oxenhope and Marshlands

Margaret Berry writes:

Three weeks ago, sunshine and blue skies (!!!) greeted Brontë Society members for the AGM weekend Sunday walk  to Oxenhope.  I have walked the route many times, and it has the happiest connections to the courtship and wedding of Charlotte Brontë and Arthur Bell Nicholls.  We walked up a narrow walled path to Sowdens, the home for twenty years of  the Rev W Grimshaw, and saw the  ancient barn used by John and Charles Wesley to preach.  We had to search for the commemorative plaque, which was covered in rambling roses.

Our group followed the path across the medieval  field systems, to Old Oxenhope Farm,  the route Rev Joseph Grant and Arthur Bell Nicholls walked on his June wedding morning.  There was much discussion and conjecture about their arriving at church with boots and cassocks  covered in wet mud.  

The long views across the valley are quite spectacular on a sunny day,  and compensate for the nettles and boggy ground. 

                                                    

We paused to look at Marshlands, the home of Rev Grant, and its neighbour, the Old Grammar School, attended  briefly by Branwell  Brontë to study Greek. The buildings are substantially the same as they were one hundred and fifty years ago.

A steep field led down from Bent’s house,  to the Oxenhope railway line - the  whole area was used in the iconic film The Railway Children.   Our group followed the valley path to the medieval pack horse bridge, pausing to watch two trains on the Worth Valley line. Then it was back to Haworth.

The AGM weekend entertained many more new visitors from Brussels, and we all had the opportunity to talk to them on the walk, and hope to see them  again next year.

A Walk with Ian Dewhirst


IMS writes:

 It was with the anticipation of a very interesting afternoon that members met with local historian and retired librarian Ian Dewhirst for a ‘walking/talking’ tour of the local graveyards. With his inimitable style Ian took the group to various graves in the old churchyard where they were regaled with fascinating stories. One memorial stone showed that Elizabeth Hartley had hoped to escape the harsh realities of life in nineteenth century Haworth for a new life in Australia - only to perish with two hundred and seventy other souls on the ship ‘London’. Isaac Constantin emigrated to Canada and became an ordained minister but not before he had established himself as a local poet in Haworth – one of his published poems stretched to one hundred and ninety seven pages!

The Haworth of the past was not exempt from scandal and intrigue for Ian related - round their grave - the story of the Sagar family. Mr Sagar was master of the local workhouse and his wife, who was said to procure girls to visit the couple’s bedroom, was his assistant. Mr Sagar went on trial in York for his wife’s murder by poisoning but he was perhaps saved from the gallows by the local physician, Dr Milligan, who gave evidence three times at the trial - each time his story was different - and Mr Sagar was acquitted.

Haworth’s church graveyard is certainly interesting and certainly very crowded so it is not surprising that Benjamin Herschel Babbage - the inspector who conducted an enquiry and later published a comprehensive and damning report on Haworth’s water supply and sanitation arrangements -  recommended the closure of that graveyard. It was an informative afternoon poking about amidst those ancient graves which showed that life in byegone Haworth was very hard, with whole families dying within months of one another and parents having to cope with the loss of one child after another.

In the Methodist graveyard and the new cemetery the group were brought more up to date as they were shown graves of people who could be called celebrities of a more modern day Haworth - ‘Harry the Hat’ and the balloonist Lily Cove.

Why does Heathcliff have only one name?

Richard Wilcocks writes:
A really impressive panel was lined up for us on the Saturday evening (9 June) of the AGM weekend – from left to right in the photograph, Terry Eagleton (Distinguished Professor of English Literature, Lancaster University), novelist and essayist Caryl Phillips (Professor at Yale University),  chair John McLeod (Professor at Leeds University) and our President Bonnie Greer. They were there to pass comment on a thirty-minute documentary with the title A Regular Black – The Hidden Wuthering Heights, which was shown after an introduction by its director, Adam Low.

Filmed on location in Yorkshire, Lancaster and Liverpool, it ‘examines the ambiguities of Emily Brontë’s classic novel and uncovers a shameful chapter in the hidden history of Black Britain.’ The story is located in Dentdale, home to the slave-trading Sill family, whose own history bears a strange resemblance to that of the fictional Earnshaws. The Sills were mentioned on this blog in a review of Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights in November last year. The documentary features commentary by Caryl Phillips, historians Iain McCalman and Cassandra Pybus, and local historians Melinda Elder and Kim Lyon. Kim Lyon was in at the beginning of the research process back in the 1970s, and is responsible for much of the work on the adoption of an orphan boy called Richard Sutton, who was described as a ‘foundling’ when brought to Dentdale by Edmund Sill. Rather than bringing him up with the Sills’ three sons and one daughter, however, he was kept with the slaves used by the Sills instead of regular servants. Many questions are raised , many speculations sent flying by the thirty minutes of video, not least amongst  them the one about the naming of Heathcliff. Why is he given just one name, like a slave? Why is he not Heathcliff Earnshaw?

Terry Eagleton reminded us that Heathcliff is a fictional character, a ‘collection of black marks on a page’. Heathcliff is ‘nowhere’ before the beginning of the story, just as Hamlet is nowhere before the play starts.  That’s the nature of literature.  “Literature gives us the green light to speculate,” said Caryl Phillips, and Bonnie Greer agreed, describing Emily Brontë as “the greatest novelist in the English language” who provides us with “a poetic dimension we are still trying to unravel.” She told us that she was writing a screenplay based on the speculation that Emily Brontë actually met Frederick Douglass in Leeds in 1847.

“One isn’t bound to appreciate Wuthering Heights through the prism of slavery,” said Caryl Phillips. “These speculations lead us to some kind of a meditation on this great British enterprise, the Slave Trade, a meditation which began in 2007  when we marked the bicentenary of its abolition.” Liverpool, we should remember, was the biggest and busiest slaving port in Europe. Bonnie Greer said that her perception of Liverpool had changed drastically since the time she first visited, when it had been the city of the Beatles, and mentioned the William Wyler movie version of Wuthering Heights, in which the irony was in the fact that it was Cathy - Merle Oberon - who was of mixed race, a secret she kept until the day she died.

Terry Eagleton explained his case that Heathcliff is of Irish origin, a waif speaking Gaelic, one of the huge numbers passing through, or stranded in, Liverpool at the time of the Famine on their way to America: “He is an insider-outsider, a crucial figure in the English novel from Tom Jones to Harry Potter, a character brought into a domestic situation who becomes a joker in the pack, a disrupting influence… let’s examine Patrick Brontë, the foreigner who became more English than the English… and let’s not forget that Heathcliff is also a shit of the first water, relentless and pitiless.”

Caryl Phillips found Eagleton’s proposal on Heathcliff’s Irish origins to be persuasive. We should not forget Liverpool’s strong Irish connections, and the contemporary prejudice against Irish people. “Well, if we knew these things for sure, the novel would lose its attraction. We can pour into it what we need and what we want,” said Bonnie Greer.

Questions from the audience showed that most of the audience was open to the proposals made in the documentary. One member contrasted Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley to Wuthering Heights, pointing out that it was “very much more factually-based”, and another member revealed herself to be a descendant of Richard Sutton: “He was not like that at all,” she said. “Kim Lyon got it all wrong!”

Living in a Power Station

Richard Wilcocks writes:
Thanks to the member (didn't catch your name, sorry) who handed me the address of this video on YouTube. It is about the noise and shadow-flicker caused by a row of wind turbines, includes real scientific observations and is entitled Living in a Power Station.

Newsflash from the AGM

At the AGM, it was revealed that the Parsonage Director, Andrew McCarthy, will be leaving to take up a new post - with the Bradford-based Artworks - in July.

The report he made to this AGM was therefore his last. Vastly popular amongst staff and members, innovative and effective, his will be a hard act to follow.

A full appreciation of what he has done will be online soon.

Charles Dickens and the Brontës

The annual June Weekend began on Friday with a well-attended lecture in the Baptist Centre given by eminent Dickens biographer Professor Michael Slater. The subject was Charles Dickens and the Brontës. The event was part of the 2012 Dickens bicentenary celebrations and took place on the eve of the anniversary of Dickens' death.


Equipped with an edition of Bleak House and little else, Professor Slater began by pointing out that there is a complete lack of evidence that any of the Brontës ever met Dickens, and not much to say about their opinions of him, even though just about everybody in their time read his works. We can speculate, of course, and we do know that Charlotte Brontë was averse to the caricaturing style and was wary of showiness and too much self promotion: reports of all those lavish London dinner parties at the Dickens household, with pineapples studding the table, would have aroused her disapproval.


Nevertheless, significant connections have been made: few important novelists of the nineteenth century were particularly interested in children, or the way they were treated. Charles Dickens and Charlotte Brontë stand out as different here. Lowood and Dotheboys Hall spring to mind, and Wackford Squeers and Brocklehurst have often been put together (misleadingly) in the same club. The young Jane Eyre could be compared and contrasted with Esther Summerson quite profitably, and it has been argued that Bleak House was an influence on Villette. Professor Slater read a few paragraphs from Chapter 3 in which Esther remembers her childhood doll, the only 'person' she felt able to talk to. Miss Barbary, Esther's strict godmother, later revealed as her aunt, could be lined up alongside Jane's aunt...


Theatre audiences in 1848 watching a Jane Eyre adaptation which had been rushed on to a stage not long after the book's publication were addressed by a servant at Lowood who spoke about the terrible Yorkshire schools which were full of unwanted children from the South - showing that Lowood was perceived by the playwright(s) as equivalent to Dotheboys Hall, revealed Dr Patsy Stoneman in question time. The Yorkshire Schools were closed down because of the outrage provoked by Dickens, but Cowan Bridge survived Jane Eyre.

Has a precedent been set?

Plans to build a set of four enormous wind turbines in Norfolk have been rejected in a recent High Court ruling. A legal precedent could have been set, according to the CPRE (Campaign to Protect Rural England).

The turbines were going to be erected in an area of outstanding natural beauty near the Norfolk Broads and the coast...

Read the BBC report :  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-18263811

Landscape threatened by turbines wins gold at Chelsea

Photo from Welcome to Yorkshire

My first Chelsea and I get gold, it doesn't get much better than this! I'm so proud of what we have achieved. I hope the high profile medal inspires more people to come to Yorkshire to see for themselves the landscape that brought gold to the garden.

These are the words (as quoted by Martin Wainwright in the Guardian’s Northerner Blog) of Tracy Foster, the Leeds garden designer , who worked closely with the Parsonage while she was creating her gold-winning entry for this year’s Chelsea Flower Show. It also collected the People's Garden award.

The materials for the Brontë Garden, which has had a non-stop stream of admirers since the Show opened, were sourced as far as possible from the area around Haworth, including boulders from Dove Stones Moor. Those Chelsea admirers who have actually visited Yorkshire and walked up to Top Withens will surely have recognized the little bridge of slabs across the beck near the Brontë Falls.

And how many of those admirers know that the wonderful Yorkshire landscape which inspired the garden is now under threat from giant turbines, which will be visible for miles across the moors? Turbines can be beautiful, I hear some of their defenders claim, a monster-sized equivalent of windmills in the Netherlands.

In which case, we can no doubt look forward to next year’s Yorkshire entries for Chelsea which incorporate them looming in the background...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/the-northerner/2012/may/22/welcome-to-yorkshire-garden-chelsea-flower-show-charlotte-emily-anne-bronte-haworth/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-18156360

http://www.itv.com/news/calendar/update/2012-05-27/hat-trick-of-wins-for-yorkshire-gardens/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcrMQNylbiQ/

New Spring/Summer Contemporary Arts Programme

Parsonage Press Release:

Costumes from the recent film adaptation of Jane Eyre, starring Mia Wasikowska (in the photo), Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell and Dame Judi Dench will be on show at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in a new exhibition which opens on Thursday 3 May. Visitors to the museum will be able to see some of the original costumes worn by the cast, displayed in the period rooms of the Parsonage. The exhibition is one of the highlights of the Bronte Parsonage Museum’s new season of contemporary arts events which is announced today. 


Artist Rebecca Chesney will be exhibiting new visual art work created during her year-long residency investigating the Brontes and the weather, in her exhibition Hope’s whisper which will open on 22^nd June. Landscape photographer Simon Warner is artist in residence 2012 for the Watershed Landscape project, a three year programme to enhance, promote and care for the moorland areas of the South Pennines. His exhibition, Ways to the stone house, will open on 28 September and feature a series of tiny landscape films, shot on the moors above Haworth, for display in the period rooms of the Bronte Parsonage Museum. The exhibition will also document the progressive ruination of Top Withens (believed to be the inspiration for Wuthering Heights), using photographs from the Parsonage archives as well as iconic images by Bill Brandt, Fay Godwin and Alexander Keighley, and will include an original sketch of Top Withens by Sylvia Plath, made on her first visit with Ted Hughes in 1956. Watershed Landscape is managed by Pennine Prospects supported by Bradford Museums and Galleries. As part of his exhibition, Simon Warner will also be curating a one-day symposium on Landscape and Literature in Haworth on Saturday 6 October. The full programme will be released shortly, and the day’s key note speaker will beSimon Armitage. 


Also visiting Haworth as part of the new season of events will be novelist Victoria Hislop on 5 July, and Dickens scholar Michael Slater will be discussing the Brontes and Dickens on the afternoon of 8 June. On the evening of 9 June, panellists Bonnie Greer, Terry Eagleton and Caryl Phillipswill be discussing the themes of race and slavery in Wuthering Heights, following a screening of the documentary A Regular Black, which explores the connections between the fictional Earnshaws in Wuthering Heights and the slave-owning families of Yorkshire. The museum will also be hosting the third Bronte Festival of Women’s Writing this summer. The weekend of readings, talks, workshops and family events will take place 31 August- 2 September and the festival will open with an event with novelist Sadie Jones on 31 August. The full festival programme will be announced in June. 


The Bronte Parsonage Museum’s contemporary arts programme is funded by Arts Council England and the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation. A full list of events is detailed below: 


Thursday 3 May until Thursday 20 September Costumes from Jane Eyre 2011  Brontë Parsonage Museum
An exhibition of the Oscar-nominated costumes from the 2011 film adaptation of Jane Eyre, displayed in the period rooms of the museum. The designer, Michael O’Connor, previously won an Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Costume Design for the 2009 film The Duchess.Exhibition free with admission to the museum 


Friday 8 June, 2pm Dickens and the Brontës: Heritage Authors  West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth


To mark the 2012 Dickens bicentenary, and on the eve of the anniversary of Dickens’ death in 1870, Michael Slater compares and contrasts the connections between Charles Dickens and the Brontës as ‘heritage authors’; their impact on national culture, the creation of societies of dedicated enthusiasts, and the myths that have been built around their lives and works. Michael Slater is Emeritus Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London, past President of the International Dickens Fellowship and of the Dickens Society of America, and former editor of the journal 'The Dickensian'. His biography Charles Dickens was published in 2009. Tickets £6 and should be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188. 


Saturday 9 June, 8pm Origin and slavery in Wuthering Heights  West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth


The casting of a mixed race Heathcliff in Andrea Arnold’s 2011 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights put issues of race into the spotlight. Who is Heathcliff? Where does his destructive anger come from? Could Emily Brontë have been hinting at a darker secret than previously imagined? The documentary A Regular Black: The Hidden Wuthering Heights examines themes of slavery and race coded into the text, and uncovers parallels between the fictional Earnshaws and the slave-owning families of Yorkshire. Following a screening of the documentary, panellists Terry Eagleton, Bonnie Greer and Caryl Phillips will tease out some of the themes. The evening will offer a fascinating new reading of the novel, and the audience will be invited to join in the debate. Professor Terry Eagleton is one of Britain’s most influential literary critics. He is Distinguished Professor of English Literature at Lancaster University, and has written many books, including Literary Theory: An Introduction (1983), The Ideology of the Aesthetic (1990), Heathcliff and the Great Hunger (1995) and Why Marx was Right (2011). Bonnie Greer OBE is a playwright, critic, broadcaster and novelist. She is the author of Entropy (2009), Obama Song (2009) and the biography Langston Hughes: the Value Of Contradiction (2011). Bonnie Greer is Deputy Chairman of the British Museum and President of the Brontë Society. Caryl Phillips is a novelist, playwright and critic. His novel A Distant Shore won the 2004 Commonwealth Writers Prize, and Crossing The River was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. He has won the Martin Luther King Memorial Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Lannan Fellowship, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. Caryl Phillips is Professor of English at Yale University.
 Tickets £12 and should be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.


Friday 22 June – Wednesday 5 September  Hope’s whisper: Rebecca Chesney
Bronte Parsonage Museum


The Brontës use descriptions of weather at key emotional points in their novels, and their own daily lives were strongly influenced by the elements. In 2011 artist Rebecca Chesney installed a weather station at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, and working with a group of local weather collectors and Haworth primary school, recorded weather patterns for 12 months. Rebecca has cross referenced this meteorological data with descriptions of weather in the Brontes’ letters and novels to create new visual artwork for exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The exhibition continues at South Square Gallery in Thornton (the Bronte birthplace), from 6 to 29 July. www.southsquarecentre.co.ukYou can read more about the weather project on Rebecca’s blog: www.bronteweather.blogspot.com Rebecca Chesney is an artist based in Preston. Her work looks at rural and urban landscapes, changing environments and human activity. Previous projects include Diligent Observationat Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2011), Five Rivers at Morecambe Bay (2008) and Death Equals All Things, Bolton Museum and Art Gallery (2007). Exhibition free with admission to the museum. 


Thursday 26 July, 7pm  Literary Weather  Brontë Parsonage Museum


To accompany her exhibition, Rebecca Chesney will be in conversation with writer and critic Alexandra Harris on the cultural significance of weather. Alexandra Harris is the author ofRomantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper, which won the Guardian First Book Award in 2010. Alexandra Harris is currently writing a cultural history of weather. The evening will explore how the Brontës’ use of literary weather compares with other writers, and will be accompanied with readings of ‘weathery’ passages from literature. The evening takes place at the museum after closing, and tea and cake will be served. Places are limited to 14. Tickets £16 and must be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188. 


Thursday 5 July, 7.30pm Victoria Hislop  West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth


Victoria Hislop visits Haworth to discuss her work and latest novel, The Thread.Victoria Hislop read English at Oxford, and worked in publishing and as a journalist before becoming a novelist. Her first two novels, The Island and The Return, were Sunday Times number one bestsellers and have been translated into more than twenty languages. Victoria won the Newcomer of the Year at the Galaxy British Book Awards 2007 and the Richard & Judy Summer Read competition. Her third novel, The Thread was published in November 2011. Victoria Hislop has written the introduction to the White’s edition of Wuthering Heights and describes the novel as “the book that changed me…it woke me up”. Tickets £6 and should be booked in advance from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188 


Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing  Friday 31 – Sunday 2 September  Brontë Parsonage Museum and other venues in Haworth


The festival of women’s writing will be back for its third year, with an increased focus on creative writing and participation. The full programme will be announced in June and will include creative writing workshops, practical activities and talks by prominent and emerging women writers. We’re delighted to announce that the 2012 festival will be opened by novelist Sadie Jones. If you wish to receive festival details as soon as they are released, please contact jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk to join the mailing list. 


Friday 31 August, 7.30pm  Sadie JonesWest Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth


Sadie Jones’s first novel, The Outcast (2008) was the winner of the Costa First Novel Award. It was also shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second novel, Small Wars (2009) was longlisted for the Orange Prize. The Uninvited Guests (2012) is her third novel. 


Friday 28 September – Monday 3 December  Ways to the stone house: Simon Warner  Brontë Parsonage Museum


Landscape photographer and filmmaker Simon Warner is artist in residence 2012 for the Watershed Landscape project, a three year programme to enhance, promote and care for the moorland areas of the South Pennines. Simon Warner will create a series of tiny landscape films, shot on the moors above Haworth, for display in the period rooms of the Bronte Parsonage Museum. The exhibition will also document the progressive ruination of Top Withens, using photographs from the Parsonage archives as well as iconic images by Bill Brandt, Fay Godwin and Alexander Keighley, and will include an original sketch of Top Withens by Sylvia Plath, made on her first visit with Ted Hughes in 1956. Watershed Landscape is managed by Pennine Prospects supported by Bradford Museums and Galleries. Simon Warner is a landscape filmmaker and photographer with research interests in early photography and optical history. Recent work includes Overworlds and Underworlds for the Cultural Olympiad, and The Arts of Place in Bradford (2010). His solo exhibitions include A Guide to Yorkshire Rivers at Impressions Gallery and Leaving Home at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Transported (2009) was a residency on the 36 bus route between Leeds and Harewood. Simon Warner was long-listed for the Northern Art Prize 2011. Exhibition free with admission to the museum Unbounded Moor: A Symposium on Landscape and Literature

Saturday 6 October, 10.30am – 4pm  West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth


As part of his Watershed Landscape residency Simon Warner will curate a one day symposium exploring the theme of ‘Landscape and Literature’. The day will feature a keynote address from poet Simon Armitage, as well as contributions from artists, experts and academics. Full details will follow in our October programme but for further information contactjenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188. For further information please contact the Arts Officer:01535 640188jenna.holmes@bronte.org.ukwww.bronte.info