Lights, Camera, Brontë

The Spring exhibition at East Riddlesden Hall is: Lights, Camera, Brontë: East Riddlesden Hall on Screen. Capitalising, I suppose, on the current frenzy around the new film version of 'Wuthering Heights', it 'uncovers the Hall's starring role in over a century of film and television adaptations of Emily Brontë’s iconic novel'. 

It seems the first version of 'Wuthering Heights', filmed here in 1920, was a silent black and white movie, starring Milton Rosmer as the brooding Heathcliffe and Ann Trevor as the wild free-spirit, Cathy.  A bit of a bodice-ripper, by the looks of the still (below)...  Sadly, the film itself has been lost. Some of the rooms in the Hall have been reimagined for the exhibition using the surviving screenplay, still photos and the director's notes to recreate aspects of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. 

The Hall has a genuine connection to the Brontës, as it was saved from demolition (after a twenty year fight) and donated to the National Trust in 1934 by the Brigg brothers, local historians and philanthropists, who were also instrumental in setting up the Brontë Society and the first Brontë museum in Haworth in the 1890s. 

East Riddlesden was also used for filming in 1992 for the 'Wuthering Heights' version starring Ralph Fiennes, and in 2009 for an ITV version. It has featured too in Monty Python's 'The Meaning of Life', 'Sharpe's Justice', 'Lost In Austen' and Channel 5's 'Anne Boleyn'. 

In the kitchen there's this huge grain ark, used for storing grain to make bread. It would have held enough to bake about 190 loaves. 

Out and about in Saltaire

Out and about in Saltaire - trees rapidly turning autumnal and beginning to drop their leaves. (The sound of leaf blowers is everywhere! Such noisy contraptions.)

The stretch of Victoria Road outside the Victoria Hall was closed to traffic when I walked down. They are filming again but there wasn't a lot to see... some classic cars, a van full of props...   

and the Victoria Hall unaccountably now 'Sowerby Bridge Town Hall'. (I felt quite affronted!) Sowerby Bridge is a town in neighbouring Calderdale and did in fact have its own Town Hall at one time, nothing like as grand. I didn't see any filming going on, though it looked as though they might have been within the Victoria Hall itself. I gather they are filming 'Ink', a major film about Rupert Murdoch's media empire, starring Guy Pearce and Jack O'Connell and directed by Danny Boyle. (Wonderfully creative chap, who masterminded the fabulous 2012 London Olympics opening ceremony.)

 

No swooning!

One of the recent additions to the Bankfield Museum's permanent textiles collection is this white linen shirt. It was famously worn by Colin Firth, who played Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's 'Pride and Prejudice'. In an invented scene, Fitzwilliam Darcy stripped to his breeches to take a cooling dip in a pond. Emerging wet and with his shirt clinging, he then encountered Elizabeth Bennett,  who had previously turned down his proposal of marriage. Suffice to say, that was a turning point in their relationship. (Well, you would, wouldn't you?) 

The shirt was one of a number of costumes auctioned for charity in 2024 by Cosprop, the theatrical costumiers. It was bought by Calderdale Museums for £25000, from their Works of Arts Fund, funded by public donations and bequests. 

Now then...  No Swooning! 

More filming!

After another busy day with tradesmen renovating my new flat, I popped out for an early evening walk. I didn't realise that they had closed the main crossroads in the middle of Saltaire to traffic and were actively filming. Of course that limited where I could walk and I couldn't get that close to the action but every now and again they had to stop to allow local traffic and pedestrians to move around. It must be very frustrating for them really, trying to co-ordinate everything. There are loads of extras involved, which seems to involve an awful lot of standing around waiting for the odd few moments of actual filming. 

The film is 'The Choral', set in 1916: screenplay by Alan Bennett, director Nicholas Hytner and starring Ralph Fiennes, Jim Broadbent and Simon Russel Beale, though I've still seen no sign of any of them. 

I rather like the look of Saltaire when they convert the shops to more old-fashioned ones. It would be nice to have a post office, a greengrocer's and more 'ordinary' shops in the centre again. The village is now full of cafés, bars, a couple of gift shops, an art gallery, a bakery, hairdressers and an off-licence/sweetshop. The more 'useful' shops are concentrated up the hill on Gordon Terrace. 

And then it rained - a sudden, very sharp downpour with thunder and lightning! Luckily by then I was sheltered under trees on the canal towpath and was able to avoid getting drenched but it must have caused havoc on the film set. All the gravel they'd laid over the tarmac was being washed away. 

 

Filming

I had just alighted from the train at Saltaire station on my return from Leeds the other day. There were a lot of commuters going up the footpath onto Albert Terrace and we found ourselves walking right into the middle of a film set! As I mentioned the other day, they are filming an Alan Bennett drama called 'The Choral', set in WW1. It stars Ralph Fiennes, Jim Broadbent and Simon Russell Beale, so it's a high budget film. Alas, I haven't seen any of the stars round and about, just a lot of crew and extras. 

Setting the scene

Saltaire is often used as a film set and, when I was walking through the village recently, I saw preparations going on for the latest drama. Apparently various locations in the area have been chosen for making a film called 'The Choral', written by that national (and Yorkshire) treasure Alan Bennett. The story is about a choral group during the First World War, and the effects on the local community as the men leave to fight. Here, they were preparing a house on Helen Street for some filming inside, carrying in various pieces of furniture and artefacts. It must be quite a feat to film inside the tiny rooms in these terraced houses, but it has been done before. The lengths they go to, often for only a few minutes of film footage, are extraordinary. 

Bodies!

Another film crew has been busy in Saltaire recently. There was little to see apart from the usual collection of trucks full of equipment. They seem to be doing the filming itself in the basement of Salts Mill, well away from curious eyes. The only clue I could see was a van belonging to Real SFX, a company dealing in Special Effects for the TV and Film industry. (Their website is rather fun, albeit a bit gory!) The local newspaper (who presumably have better contacts than I!) reckon that they are filming a Netflix drama called 'Bodies' (which seems to have no link to the medical TV series of that name that was shown in the early 2000s). Apparently it is a crime drama, with four different detectives in four different time periods investigating the same murder. Sounds quite intriguing. At this rate, I'm going to have to subscribe to Netflix, as a lot of the stuff they film locally seems to be under that banner. 

Below stairs at Harewood House

I've recently been doing a fair bit of research on my family tree and have come across a couple of female ancestors who worked 'in service' as housemaids or nursemaids to wealthy families. It was one of few avenues open to young, unmarried women to earn a living, before the two World Wars began to change everything. The families they worked for were not nearly as well-to-do as the Lascelles of Harewood House. Nevertheless it was interesting to get a glimpse 'below stairs', at the kitchens with their huge ranges and gleaming copperware, the sculleries and the servants' hall, where the servants would have had their meals, men at one table presided over by the Butler and women at another, under the watchful eye of the Housekeeper.   

There are two call bell systems, one a Victorian system of wires and pulleys and an electronic one from the 1930s, which the gentry used to summon their servants. 

There are also cupboards of exquisite china and glassware on display. I just loved this delicate painted glass. 

There are a few costumes displayed too. This is Princess Mary's wedding dress (or at least a replica of it, since the original is too fragile to have on display), dating back to her wedding to Viscount Lascelles (later the 7th Earl) in Westminster Abbey in 1922. 

Harewood House is often used for TV and film productions, from Victoria to Mary Berry to Downton Abbey, as well as the long-running TV soap, Emmerdale, which has a permanent set on the estate. HRH Princess Mary and her husband actually featured in the Downton Abbey movie, along with the fictitious Crawleys of Downton. It was partly filmed here in 2018, so some of the costumes and a table setting are from that. You can see the place settings for Lady Mary Crawley and the Earl of Grantham: 

GI alert!

I nearly ran off with a GI yesterday! Seriously, they were a handsome lot. Salts Mill was overrun with them, with their trucks and jeeps. I gather they are filming again. This time it is for 'The Railway Children Return', which is either a remake or a sequel (reports not clear) to the beloved 1970s classic. (See HERE). The original was filmed in this area, mainly around the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. It seems some of the stars of that - Jenny Agutter among them - are to reappear in this latest movie, along with well-known names such as Sheridan Smith and Tom Courtenay. 

Oh, it's fun living in Saltaire, I tell you! 

 

'Gentleman Jack' series 2

They've been filming 'Gentleman Jack' down at Salts Mill for three days. I must have been down half a dozen times and not seen anything and then I got lucky and saw some action. It was, of course, all roped off so sightseers couldn't get close but with my zoom lens I did rather better than I'd hoped, catching a sequence with Gentleman Jack (Suranne Jones) striding along the 'street' that they've created in the middle of the mill. 

I know from watching other films being made (Saltaire being quite a magnet for period dramas, inevitably) that there is an awful lot of set building and then an awful lot of people just standing around, apparently not doing much - and then you get a short burst of frantic action!  

The rest of my photos are just the 'standing around' bits:

They go to enormous lengths to add atmosphere - real geese and a sheepdog (goosedog?)  as well as a horse and carriage. 

But mostly it's just lots of huge vans and lots and lots of cables! 

For those who don't know, 'Gentleman Jack' is a BBC drama series, now filming the second series. Written by Yorkshire writer Sally Wainwright, it tells the true story of Anne Lister (1791-1840), a remarkable woman who inherited Shibden Hall in Halifax and, unusually for the times, lived there openly as a lesbian. She kept detailed, encrypted diaries from which much about her life is known. See HERE and HERE for  posts I wrote when they were making the first series in Halifax.