Anne Brontë | Boomers Daily

Emily Bronte, Anne Bronte, and Charlotte Bronte lived 180 years ago. We visit Bronte Country and walk in the footsteps of the Bronte Sisters, piecing together their tragic short lives as we visit places they lived or frequented. The Brontes wrote some of the most dramatic fiction right here in West Yorkshire and many of the places still exist.

On our walk, we will head to where it all started at the Bronte’s birthplace in Thornton. Visit the school that Charlotte Bronte immortalised as Lowood School in Jane Eyre. See Oakwell Hall which she based Fieldhead on in Shirley. Walk the wild Haworth Moors to Top Withens where Emily Bronte found inspiration for Wuthering Heights, and a whole lot more. All the time telling the story of how the 3 Bronte Sisters came to be the famous writers we all know today.

In the early 19th century the house kept an extensive library, and the Brontës were regular visitors; many details of the house, particularly the interior, suggest fairly clearly that it was the inspiration for the Lintons’ home, Thrushcross Grange. Anne Brontë was just as inspired as Emily, incidentally: Ponden is also the model for the titular house in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Ponden Hall is in the village of Stanbury and is even accessed via a lane with a suitably Gothic name: Scar Top Road. It’s huge: there are eight bedrooms, a paddock, four acres of land and a further two-bedroom annexe — ideal for the Nelly who looks after your family, or for use as a potential holiday let to Brontë-mad tourists.

The oldest parts of the hall date to 1541, but most of the house as it stands today goes back to 1634 — and the evidence of its great age is plain to see.

The beams, walls, floors, ceilings, fireplaces and windows are gloriously authentic — and the owners have doubled-down on the effect with some wonderfully inspired furniture choices, especially with the beds. Don’t fret about the fact that you’d struggle to find similar pieces yourself: the vendors are apparently happy sell it on via separate negotiation.