The Anne Stone

Haworth's Parsonage was, from 1820 to 1861, the home of Patrick Brontë and his family, including the famous literary sisters: Charlotte, Emily and Anne. Now a museum, it sits in a corner of the graveyard behind the church where Patrick was the minister. 

At the front, it looks out at the church and down to the village beyond. The stone in the wall says: ' This was the site of the gate leading to the church, used by the Brontë family and through which they were carried to their final resting place in the church.' 

At the rear, the Parsonage looks out over moors and fields with scattered hamlets, some of which may have been there in the Brontës' time. 

Between the Parsonage garden and the fields lies a wildflower meadow known as Parson's Field, now set aside for people to walk or sit and reflect on the view and the history of this place. 

To mark the bicentenary, four stones were placed in the Yorkshire landscape at sites of significance to the family (see HERE). Poems have been carved on them by fine art letter carver Pip Hall (whom I featured in my blog some time ago HERE).  

The Anne Stone sits in a corner of Parson's Field, rather oddly positioned facing the wall. Anne Brontë is the only sibling not buried in the family vault in the church, as she died aged 29 in Scarborough and is buried there. The stone is therefore a means to 'bring her home' to the place she grew up and where she wrote her two novels: Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the latter considered to be one of the first feminist novels. 

The poem inscribed was written by Jackie Kay, one of Scotland's National Poets or Makars. 

'These dark sober clothes
are my disguise. No, I was not preparing
for an early death, yours or mine.
You got me all wrong, all the time.
But sisters, I’ll have the last word,
write the last line. I am still at sea -
but if I can do some good in this world,
I will right the wrong. I am still young,
and the moor’s winds lift my light-dark hair.
I am still here when the sun goes up,
and here when the moon drops down.
I do not now stand alone.'