If you fancy walking the churchyard in Haworth ............. plan your trip carefully

Now if you have to do a bit of research there is a bonus in it being in the parish church yard at Howarth.*

Throw in the fact that this was a trip out for our Jill and Geoff up from London and all set well for a promising jolly.

I reckoned that we could do the Bronte museum take in all the touristy shops and grab something to eat with me wandering off to look for the gravestones of the Sunderland family.

The research was linked with the ever growing story of Mr Henry Hurdus who brewed ginger beer and other such drinks from his brewery in Hollinwood, with one of his lost glass bottles discarded in Alexandra Park in the 1890s.

The story has taken some nice twists including making contact with Annette a family historian in Australia and talking to her relative Olive who during the 1950s visited the very brewery.

Olive is directly related to Mr Hurdus and in the course of a conversation yesterday with Olive she mentioned that another branch of the family was buried in Haworth.

That just set the seal on the day.

But even the best laid plans can go awry.

Last time we had been there it had been in spring, on a sunny  day.  The tourists were out in droves and the Bronte house along with the grave yard, the parish church and shops were all at their best.

Yesterday was different.  The rain came down like stair rods and worse when the wind got up the church yard was no place to be.

Added to which by 3 pm many of the shops were closing.

Still there was the pub and Geoff and I were given instructions by Tina to go find a pub with food, which we did.

The sign outside the place advertised food, but having bought the beer settled down to ask for the menu we were told “food was off till tomorrow.”

Such are the problems faced by the would be researcher.

That said there was another which offered up a good meal some pleasant beer all of which retrieved the day.

And that just leaves me to fix a date in spring for a return.

Pictures; Haworth, 2014, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Haworth, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Haworth

A parsonage in Howarth a Brontë sister and the Salutation in Chorlton on Medlock

Now I am back with the Brontë sisters, after all you can wait for a Brontë story all week and then two turn up at the same time.*

Well I say the same time in this case just a few days apart.

The sisters lived in Haworth and it was there that we went on Saturday taking full advantage of the May sunshine and a wish to escape the city.

And I was pleasantly surprised.  The tourist bit was not overdone, the museum where they had lived was fascinating and the views across the valley were stunning.

Then as you do I remembered that one of the Brontë women had spent some time in Manchester and moreover there was a plaque to her beside that wonderful old pub the Salutation.*

I doubt that she would have visited the pub which opened its doors not long after the Brontë family took up residence at the Parsonage in Haworth but it is a good example of just how messy history can be and how even when you don’t go looking for connections in the past they have a habit of bouncing up and surprising you.

And with that firmly at the front of the story it leaves me only to make the connection between the painting of the Parsonage at Haworth and the Salutation in Chorlton on Medlock which is that both were painted by Peter Topping

In the meantime other paintings by Peter can be seen at the exhibition, CHORLTON-CUM-HARDY... A MOMENT IN TIME EXHIBITION. The Exhibition starts April 22nd till May 17th 2014 at Arison Gallery, 512 Wilbraham Road, Chorlton, M21 9AW. Telephone: 0161 881 6734, email: arison.gallery@ntlworld.com web: www.gladtobe.in

Paintings; The Parsonage at Haworth & The Salutation in Chorlton0n Medlock,© 2014 Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

*On a May Day with the Brontë sisters, a parsonage and lots of shops, http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Bront%C3%AB%20sisters

**The Salutation gives up some of its secrets,  http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-salutation-gives-up-some-of-its.html

On a May Day with the Brontë sisters, a parsonage and lots of shops

Now I have read my fair share of the novels of the Brontë sisters although not as many as I should and on balance have probably seen more film and TV adaptations.

And until this week I had not been to their home in Haworth in Yorkshire.

So with the promise of some early May sunshine and a wish to escape the city we headed east into Yorkshire and Brontë country.

It is a stunning location and the row of shops, pubs and restaurants do not over intrude on the parsonage which was where the sisters grew up and is now a museum.

The house is small but then country parsonages were not I suspect lavish places.

The ground floor consisted of just three rooms with a stone stair case at the rear which twists back on it to give access to another four rooms.

During their stay two rooms were added by opening up what had been a store room on the ground floor and creating an internal door into the room above which originally had only been accessed by an outside staircase.

Now even with these additions it was hardly a spacious property given that Patrick and Maria Brontë had six children and at least one living in servant.

But then many of their neighbours would have lived in far humbler buildings and brought up as many or even more children.

And by comparison here was comfortable living.

The rooms may have been small and most walls painted rather than papered but even given the dependence on candles and coal fires I suspect most of us would have felt at ease.

The house fronted onto a small garden which led directly into the church yard and the church itself.

Today of course many of the surrounding properties have been given over to the business of selling the Brontë’s but step into the graveyard or better still out of the village and the sense of open raw countryside is all around you.

So even given that this was a bright and warm May Day it was easy to get a sense of what the place might have been like on a cold February day with a biting east wind and the promise of snow.

Nor could all those bright shops hide the grim reality of a village where the death rate at one point so high that it prompted a Government visit.

All of which is today a long way in the past, and I doubt even the most knowledgeable Brontë visitor will allow that to intrude on the day.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson