Everybody went to London last weekend and I was getting jealous because I really wanted to go back but I knew I couldn't afford it. I started thinking about places in the north of England that I could go instead and I remembered that the Bronte sisters lived in northern England so I decided to go see their house and museum.
They lived in a village called Haworth (prononced How-worth) which is about half an hour train ride from Leeds. It's a teeny tiny village that is built on two hills. The nearest train station is in Keighley (pronounced Keith-lee) and I had to take a bus from there to Haworth. I got off the bus at the top of one of the hills and had to walk down into the valley, past an old fashion train station and up the other hill to get to the parsonage. I had read some of Charlotte Bronte's letters and from her descriptions of the town, I was able to recognized the street leading to the church and their house which I thought was very cool.
The street leading up to the house reminded me of a narrower and steeper version of state street. It was full of vintage cloth stores, tea shops and second hand book stores. At the top of this narrow little street is the church. Unfortunatly, most of the church was pulled down about 20 years after Charlotte Bronte died so the only part that remains from when they lived there is the tower. The church is surrounded by a very crowded graveyard. I hadn't realized this but at the time that the Brontes lived there, Haworth was a very bad place to live. Most of the population were fairly poor and there was horrible sanitation. Cholera was a very common problem. I think I read that 41% of children who were born at that time died before they reached the age of 6 becuase of the diseases that filled the town. This is worse than the slums of London at that time. That's why the graveyard was almost overflowing with bodies. And the graveyard added to the problem. The bodies couldn't decompose properly so they caused more toxins to be leaked into the water supply. Knowing all this, it makes sense why none of the Bronte sisters lived very long.
The parsonage itself was very nice. It was much bigger than I expected it to be and it seemed very comfortable. They had all the rooms set up as they would have been when the Brontes lived there. They had a lot of the their funiture and their personal belongings. I think it's because they were well known for their writing when they were alive and after they died, people started collecting their things and taking good care of them.
My favorite room was the dining room. This is where most of the books including Jane Eyre were written. They didn't allow pictures in the museum unfortunatly. I almost bought a postcard with a picture of the dining room on it but honestly, it was a really bad picture. I was just checking the website to see if they have any pictures but they don't. It is a good website though with lots of good information, so if you're interested, check it out.
http://www.bronte.info/
Anyways, the dining room. It was very small even though it had been enlarged so I can't image how small it would have been originally. In the middle of the room there was a square table which is where they used to sit in the evenings writing and discussing what they were writing. Next to the fireplace, they had the rocking chair that Emily used to sit in and along one of the walls they had the sofa where it is believed that Emily died.
Upstairs, in Charlotte's room they had a really good collection of her clothes and jewelry. I was impressed by what good condition everything was in. There was one of her dresses and it was very pretty and much fancier than I expected it to be. They also had her wedding bonnet. I had read descriptions of it before but i had had a difficult time picturing what it would have looked like so it was very cool to actually be able to see it. They also had her writing desk which was, ya know, awesome.
I also went into the church although there was not much to see. The Bronte family were buried in the crypt of the church because that's were family members of parsons were buried. You can't go down there but there is a little plaque about it. The rest of the church was nothing fancy. It is still the church for the area and actually, early that afternoon there had been a wedding there. I'm always suprised when I realize that these old historic churches are still being used.
After that, I went to check into my hostel. It was very nice, the staff was nice and it was pretty empty so even though I had booked a room in a 10 bed dorm, I had the room to myself. And did I mention, the hostel was a Victorian mansion?
Just to complete the whole Bronte expereince, I went out for a walk on the moors after dinner.
The next day, I wanted to get back to York as early as possible because I had a lot I wanted to do there. I was upset to learn that the bus from Haworth to Keighley didn't start running until 10:45 in the morning. I remembered seeing that the antique train had a stop in Keighley so I decided to go down to the station to check it out. There was a train that left at 10 so I decided to take it. It was very cute and it went through a lot of good scenery and it was definitely more fun than taking the bus. I still ended up waiting at the Keighley station though so I didn't get back to York any earlier. Oh well.
York is a beautiful town. The building that sticks out the most is York Minster which is the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe. I decided that since I hadn't been able to go into Westminster in London that I should go to York Minster. But first I wandered around the streets for a while, checking out the shops and looking for lunch. York has tons on tiny little streets with cool clothing boutiques and gift stores and gourmet food stores and vintage places so you can spend a lot of time just walking around. There were also having a market and there were all kinds of interesting stalls.
Eventually I had wandered in a big circle back to York Minster. I hardly had to wait at all to get in and it cost about half of what it is to get into Westminster but it was still super impressive. My neck was starting to hurt by the time I got done looking. I spent about an hour looking around and then I noticed signs for a evening church service I decided to leave and come back for church. I 'm really glad I did because the choir was fantastic. They had us sitting in the middle section that has the wooden curtain around it. I was sitting next to this old British guy who, every time we would need to find a song in the hymnal or something, he would take my book out of my hands, flip it to the right page and then hand it back to me. I feel like the people who normally go there for church are probably used to helping out the tourists.
After dinner, I went on a ghost walk and heard some good stories about York. One of the stories was about the only native saint of York. Her name is St. Margaret. She married a butcher and lived on this street called the Shambles. It looked a bit like Diagon Alley. When she married this butcher she converted from protestant to Catholic. This was in the time of the reformation so that was a very dangerous move on her part. After she converted, she used to help other Catholics by having Mass in her house and hiding members of the clergy and things. She was jailed several times and eventually, she was sentenced to death by pressing. She was actually killed on the street that my hostel was on but fortunatly her ghost haunts her old house so I ddin't have to worry about her when I was walking back that night.
The tour ended around 9:30 and I was looking for somewhere to get some hot chocolate or something because I was pretty cold but I wasn't quite ready to go back to the hostel yet. I was wandering around and I heard some violin music coming from a pub. I stuck my head in the door and was watching the the guitarist and violinist and trying to decide whether or not when to go in when the violinist started waving at me to come in so I did. They were actually very good musicians and very entertaining to watch. The violinist was playing an electric violin and every once and a while, he would play it like a bass instead which was very cool.
I got a cider and was looking for a place to sit. It was absolutely packed but there was a counter with a couple sitting at it and one empty stool so I asked if I could sit down there. The woman I ended up sititng next to was very nice and she basically started telling me her whole life story. She was in town with her husband for their 25th anniversary. They were a very funny couple. We ended up talking for about an hour and a half. It was a very fun way to end the trip.
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