Wild Uplands #3

Here's my own 'take' on the 'Wild Uplands' above Haworth. Honestly, who needs artworks when you have all this beauty? There are layers and folds in the landscape, gradually assuming a purplish hue as the heather starts to bud. 

Tumbled chunks of gritstone lie in the hollows, felled by some unseen force. Ferns push their way resolutely upwards through the thin soil.

The moors that the Brontë sisters trod are gradually being tamed. The heather, once prevalent, is gradually dying back as grass, bracken and bilberries march across the land. 

In the far distance on the mid-right in the photo below, you can perhaps just discern the ruined farmhouse and the lone tree at Top Withens, reputedly an inspiration for Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights'. (See HERE for more detail.) 

Lower Laithe Reservoir (below), like all our watercourses, is somewhat low in water due to our very dry spring weather. 

As I was exploring, I stumbled - almost literally - across another artwork, this time rather older. It consisted of various embedded stones carved to look like books. It's entitled 'Literary Landscape' by Martin Heron and was installed in 2003. There are apparently ten of these sandstone carvings scattered across the moorland, the books not titled, but prompting us to recall our own favourite 'literary landscapes'. Gradually the moor is reclaiming them so they look 'planted' in the soil.  

Wild Uplands #2

The third sculptural installation on Penistone Hill, above Haworth, was '99 Butterflies' by Meherunnisa Asad, Studio Lél. I didn't count if there were 99 but they were certainly butterflies, created from a material that looked like marble, in different colours and textures, all pressed together in the manner of marquetry. (I think it was all natural stone rather than paint.) In themselves, each piece was really beautiful. It says the work was 'inspired by Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s haunting question: 'Where will we go after the last frontiers? Where will the birds fly after the last sky?' The work explores displacement, sanctuary and longing.'

I thought it 'nice' rather than breathtaking.  I wanted them all to be facing the same way and to look as though they might be somehow rising up to fly.  As it was, they looked to me a bit scrappy and disjointed. 

Finally I came to 'Muamba Posy' by Vanessa da Silva, 'a series of interactive sculptures that reflect on the ever-changing cycles of nature on Penistone Hill, where life has adapted and transformed over time. Each sculpture invites us to explore the connections between sculpture, the human body and the natural world. They draw on this landscape’s long-distant past – some 300 million years ago, when Penistone Hill was a tropical paradise. The sculptures evoke the oversized plants and vibrant wildlife that once thrived here, while also taking inspiration from heather, bilberries, tomentils, damselflies and other plants and creatures that define this landscape today. '

Well, they were colourful and fun, quite appealing for children perhaps but, again, seemed totally incongruous in this setting. I'd have preferred to see them in an ordinary town park. 

So, not my favourite of the City of Culture offerings but I'm glad I went to see them and I'm glad these bold ventures are being commissioned. It's good to be pushed a bit outside your comfort zone. 

 

Wild Uplands #1

One bright, dry but windy day, I decided the time had come to visit the moorland above Haworth to see a series of sculptures exhibited as part of the Bradford City of Culture. Four artists have been invited to create site-specific artworks, 'taking inspiration both from this natural landscape and from our shared industrial heritage; from true stories and imagined fables; and from the history of this countryside and its potential future in light of the climate crisis.' Wild Uplands also includes Earth and Sky, an immersive sound walk created with Opera North that people can listen to as they explore the landscape - though of course (deaf) I wasn't able to enjoy that.  Maybe I would have appreciated it all more had I been able to. 

I could just about relate to 'Tower' by Steve Messam. This is a monumental work, clad in raw sheep fleece from local breeds, that obviously references the wool textile heritage of Bradford. It had some resonance with the bales of hay that you might at one time have seen in the fields (nowadays shrink-wrapped in plastic!), with the outcrops of gritstone that rise through the moors, and perhaps with the follies and monuments that dot our landscape. 

But then I came to 'The Children of Smokeless Fire' by Monira Al Qadiri - and here, I'm afraid, she lost me. It says it is 'a work of mystery and magic with two distinct inspirations: the famous ‘Cottingley Fairies’, created by two Bradford girls in 1917, and the Djinns, mythical beings depicted in a 13th-century Islamic manuscript by Zakariya al-Qazwini.'  No doubt there's a cultural barrier for me but I couldn't feel the link to this wild moorland, even though it is famous as a result of the writings of the Brontë sisters' novels, equally mythical stories in a way. They just looked totally incongruous in this setting, though I could perhaps have warmed to them more had they been in a town park. 

Never mind. I don't have to like all the art I see and not liking the art didn't spoil a good, breezy yomp around the moor! 

Brontë Parsonage Museum

This little area is perhaps not much changed since the time of the Brontës. The Parsonage has gained an extra wing (with the gable, on the right). Down the lane, on the right of my photo, is the old schoolroom that Patrick Brontë built for the children of Haworth. Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell all taught here at various times. In 1854, it was where Charlotte had her wedding reception when she married her father's curate, Rev'd Arthur Bell Nicholls. Sadly, she died just 9 months later during her first pregnancy. 

Patrick Brontë outlived his wife and all his children. He died in 1861. The family's possessions were given to friends or auctioned. Even before Patrick died, there was a huge amount of interest in the Brontës, thanks to the speculation over who had written the various novels, published under pseudonyms. One of Charlotte's friends, Elizabeth Gaskell, published her popular biography 'The Life of Charlotte Brontë' in 1857 and Haworth became a place of pilgrimage for devotees. 

In 1893, the Chief Librarian of Bradford founded The Brontë Society. They began gathering memorabilia, which was initially displayed in a small museum on Haworth's Main Street. In 1928, Sir James Roberts (who by then was the sole owner of Salts Mill), showing remarkable foresight and goodwill, bought the Parsonage and gifted it to The Brontë Society. It has been a museum, with an ever expanding collection, since then. It gets thousands of visitors each year, from as far away as Japan where, it seems, the Brontës are famous and revered. My own visit this time coincided with that of a group of very excited primary school children. As a result, I didn't take many photos inside! 

The dining room is where the siblings gathered to write in the evenings and to share their stories, walking around the table as they read. It was here in 1848 - so they say - that Emily died on the sofa, of TB, a few months after her brother Branwell had died of the same disease, exacerbated in his case by opium and alcohol addiction. Anne died the following year, also of TB, in Scarborough, where she had been taken to try a sea cure. 

Charlotte lived another six years, dying aged 38 shortly after her marriage and in the early stages of pregnancy. Her bedroom now holds various items belonging to her, including her writing desk and some clothes and bonnets. 

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.'

 

Haworth's back streets

It is interesting to wander round some of Haworth's side streets. The village was at one time an agricultural settlement, which then - like so many places round here - grew rapidly during the Industrial Revolution, as mills took over from domestic handloom weaving. The village has a hodge-podge mix of different ages of buildings, mostly 18th and 19th century. Some parts are quite characterful, like The Fold (above and below) with buildings arranged round a stone-setted square. 

I case anyone wants to be sentimental about the past, in the 19th century Haworth was said to have worse sanitary conditions than London's slums. Rev Patrick Brontë was so concerned that in 1850 he succeeded in getting an inspection by the Board of Health, after which it was agreed to install a proper sewerage system to replace the open sewers that ran through the streets. There were, it's said, just 69 toilets for a population of 2,500. There were frequent outbreaks of disease. Life expectancy was just 25 years and 41% of children died before the age of six! It was grim. 

Shirley Street is now a little private road. Some of the cottages are 18th century handloom weavers' cottages, like those below, characterised by their long rows of mullioned windows on the upper floor, designed to let in as much light as possible for the loom.  

Townend Farm (above) is one of the oldest properties in the area, originally a Tudor (late 1500s) yeoman clothier's house. It has been renovated as a residential property. On Changegate, a doorway is inscribed 1611. I'm assuming it is original to the house but you never quite know whether things have been rescued from older properties and integrated into newer ones. The door itself looks fairly new. 

Haworth Main Street

The village of Haworth is, of course, world famous as the home of the Brontë family. The centre retains a lot of charm, with its steep, cobbled Main Street still lined with shops, though many were originally built as textile workers' cottages in the 18th and 19th centuries. These days, rather than the greengrocer, butcher, baker, apothecary and stationery shop that the literary sisters would have known, it holds numerous cafés, gift shops, bookshops and galleries to cater for the masses of tourists that visit. 

On a sunny weekend in summer, the street would be thronged with visitors. On a sunny day in winter there were still plenty of folk about (more in the cafés!) but you could at least see the view and walk without threading your way through the crowds. 

So come with me on a walk down the street, from the square at the top (above - actually more of a triangle) where the Black Bull pub has a commanding site. (This was where Branwell Brontë drank himself silly.) The church is out of shot on the right, behind the railings. The building on the right edge, now a restaurant, was in the Brontës' time the main post office from where the sisters would mail their manuscripts to their publisher. It's said that Branwell used to take refuge here when he was drunk. His friend the postmaster used to let him use an upstairs back room which had a clear view to the Parsonage. Emily would light a candle in her window as a signal that her father had gone to bed and it was safe for Branwell to return home!  

What I most love is that wonderful glimpse of countryside beyond, with the fields and woodland catching the sunlight. 

The Georgian building with the steps, now a restaurant, was once the home of a clockmaker, John Barraclough (1773-1835) and, in Haworth's Parsonage, there is Barraclough clock that belonged to the Brontë family. Emily Brontë borrowed the name for a character named Mosley Barraclough in her novel 'Wuthering Heights'. 

Haworth at night

Away from the bright, festive lights of Haworth's Main Street, the rest of the village looks almost as though it's unchanged from when the Brontë family lived here. (It's not unchanged, of course, but it is certainly atmospheric in the dark.) You can imagine Charlotte tripping home along the cobbled street from the schoolroom where the sisters taught (on the right above) to the Parsonage, the house at the top of the lane. (It has had an extra wing added since they lived there: the gable-ended bit on the right.)

The Parsonage looks out over the graveyard and the church, where Patrick Brontë was the minister. 

Church Street, still cobbled and very narrow, links the church and parsonage to the Main Street.

Festive Haworth

My extended family had a festive meal out in Haworth one evening, to coincide with the traditional Torchlight Procession. Haworth, the village where the literary Brontë family lived, is always atmospheric and especially so with the Christmas lights twinkling. 

The Torchlight Procession is a long-standing tradition, though these days seems rather watered-down. People process up the main street, carrying flaming torches, and stopping at intervals to sing Christmas carols. At one time people dressed up in Victorian era clothing and there were Morris Dancers as well as a brass band. There was a band and there were a few flaming torches, and lots of LED star wands, but I didn't really see any Victorian costume or dancers and even the carols were rather muted. The weather was pretty foul - wet and windy - so maybe that had an effect. 

Upping the wuthering

Playing about with texture layers now... While we're spending time with the Brontës, here's a photo of the old farmhouse at Top Withins, reputed to be the inspiration for Emily Brontë's novel 'Wuthering Heights'. It's always quite atmospheric up there on the high moor anyway, but a couple of textures add a bit more of a wuthering (turbulent, stormy) feel.