Yorkshire in northern england is the land of fresh air and stormy heights. And of all things Haworth – a place name like a smoker’s cough – is something like the magnetic pole in it. For in Haworth lived and wrote in the mid-nineteenth century the sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, proud, shy women, vicar’s daughters and best-selling authors. The main street, paved with large cobblestones, with sidewalks climbing in steps, leads up to the outskirts of the village, the church, the cemetery and the vicarage, which lies on the border between the inhabited and uninhabited world. Behind them, Moor and Heide begin and with them the freedom to roam around, to play, to fantasize, to dream and to compose poetry. In Emily Brontë’s novel “Wuthering Heights”, a classic of world literature, she is the scene of a tragic, brutal family history and an undying love. “Nothing more desolate in winter . . .”
But in summer! A high sky, cloud mountains. And in September, when the heather is in bloom, a rolling sea of violet waves. Stone walls run like seams across the treeless mountains, and the wind chases cloud shadows across the land. When he is silent you can hear the sheep plucking the short grass.
Bad words and biting dogs
And, of course, every walk here is also a literary pilgrimage: to Brontë Falls, to Ponden Hall, to the cliffs of Penistone, and to Top Withens, four miles beyond Haworth, a lonely homestead that Emily B. used as a template for Wuthering Heights, the weather-beaten and most inhospitable home of Mr. Heathcliff, is said to have served. Mr. Lockwood, who seeks shelter there, meets only injustice: bad words, vicious dogs, the cold hand of a night ghost trying to get through the broken window – and not even a cup of tea. A snowstorm outside.
But in summer! Two hundred years ago, six little Brontë siblings ran after the butterflies on the heath; and later, when there were only three of them—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—they would walk there arm in arm, dragging the hems of their clothes through the heather, jumping over the stepping stones in the creek, and scrambling up the hillside to the only building above it a few crooked pines bent and banged on the windows with their branches. At the time, Top Withens was occupied by a farming family, and it is safe to assume that the Reverend B.’s daughters were offered a cup of tea.
Small property, big importance: Top Withens near Haworth is said to have been the model for “Wuthering Heights”.
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Bild: Bridgeman Images
Now a well-secured ruin, even then it didn’t really resemble the stately Wuthering Heights from the novel. never mind Emily was here. She loved the moor and the view from up there: only sky and earth and a crack in the clouds where the sun’s gold coin floats before the gray beards of the rain clouds grind back over the hills. Also in the summer. “‘Wuthering’ was an apt dialect to describe the atmospheric turmoil the place experiences in stormy weather,” says the first chapter.
With a mouthful of apple pie
Rivaling Top Withens for inspiration is Ponden Hall at Stanbury, a three mile walk from Haworth, situated on a hill overlooking Ponden Reservoir. Since the author has not commented on the location, the year 1801, which is engraved above the door ledge – the date with which the novel begins – is considered as proof. In addition, a room opposite the library contained the remains of an alcove bed. Did Emily see it while visiting Ponden Hall’s well-stocked library with her sisters? The previous owner of Ponden Hall Bed & Breakfast had a replica of this furniture installed in an attic room, albeit a safe distance from the window.