Month: December 2024

All too often our encounters with the Brontë stories are tragic ones, especially if we follow them week by week, as we do on this blog. Just last week we marked the tragic early death of Emily Brontë. It was anything but festive, but today we mark a much more joyous occasion as we celebrate the wedding of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell.

It was on this day in 1812 that Patrick and Maria became Mr and Mrs Brontë – marking the beginning of the Brontë story as we know it, the birth of the House of Brontë. Their married life produced six children, and it was a love match – which wasn’t always the case in the early nineteenth century. 

We can still visit the location of their wedding – St. Oswald’s church is in Guiseley, between Leeds and Bradford and three miles north of Woodhouse Grove school where Patrick and Maria first met, probably, in the summer of 1812. I say probably because there is a possibility they had met before, and I will explore that in another blog post. You can see this grand old church at the head of this post.

It was a doubly joyful occasion within St. Oswald’s as it was a double wedding – alongside Patrick and Maria, William Morgan (Patrick’s best friend) married Jane Fennell (Maria’s cousin). John Fennell, Patrick’s employer at the school where he was a Classics examiner, gave away the two brides – Jane and Maria were his daughter and niece.

To add to the unique nature of this event, 400 miles to the south, in Penzance, Cornwall, Charlotte Branwell, sister to Maria and cousin to Jane Fennell, was marrying yet another cousin, Joseph Branwell. On Christmas Day 1884, this Charlotte’s daughter, another Charlotte Branwell, gave this fulsome description to a local newspaper:

‘It was arranged that the two marriages [Patrick and Maria and William and Jane] should be solemnized on the same day as that of Miss Charlotte Branwell’s mother, fixed for 29th December in far off Penzance. And so, whilst the youngest sister of Mrs. Brontë was being married to her cousin, the late Mr Joseph Branwell, the double marriage, as already noted was taking place in Yorkshire. Miss Charlotte Branwell also adds that at Guiseley not only did the Rev. Mr Brontë and the Rev. Mr Morgan perform the marriage ceremony for one another, but the brides acted as bridesmaids for each other. Mr Fennell, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, would have united the young people, but he had to give both brides away. Miss Branwell notes these facts to prove that the arrangement for the three marriages on the same day was no caprice or eccentricity on the part of Mr Brontë, but was made entirely by the brides. She has many a time heard her mother speak of the circumstances. “It is but seldom,” continues Miss Branwell, “that two sisters and four cousins are united in holy matrimony on the same day. Those who were united on that day bore that relationship to each other. Mrs. Brontë (formerly Maria Branwell) and my mother, Charlotte Branwell, were sisters; my father was their cousin; and Jane Fennel was a cousin to them all, her father, the Rev. J. Fennell, having married a Miss Branwell of a former generation.

If the account I have given you is likely to be of any interest you are quite at liberty to use it as you think proper. I really think a deal of eccentricity has been ascribed to Mr Brontë which he never possessed, and from his letters to my dear mother, of which there are some still in existence, I should say he was a very worthy man, but one who had to pass through some great trials in the early death of a truly amiable wife and of a very gifted family.”’

Patrick and Maria, William and Jane, Joseph and Charlotte all ended the year on a high, and in my own way I am too. I’ve loved sharing lots of Brontë blog posts with you throughout the year, and I’m enjoying making videos for my new YouTube channel The House Of Brontë.

Today’s post is very appropriate for me too, as I look forward to my own wedding next year. 2025 promises to be a wonderful year for me, so thank you for all your support as always. I hope to see you here on Thursday for a special New Year’s Day Brontë blog post.

We’ve made it to another Christmas, and I hope yours is just as joyful and happy as mine is! I’m typing this on Christmas Day itself, and there’s lots of love and no bah humbug, so who could ask for more? As is traditional on this Brontë blog we are going to celebrate the big day with an Anne Brontë Christmas poem! I’ll intersperse it with some bizarre Victorian Christmas cards too – like this one!

It’s all too easy to think of the Brontë lives as relentlessly miserable, but in fact they also enjoyed moments of great happiness – especially when they were all together as a family. We can easily imagine Emily Brontë at the piano, with Anne singing in her quiet yet sweet voice. Tabby and Martha, the loyal Brontë servants, would be cooking up a treat for everyone to enjoy – I’m sure there would even be a scrap or two left over for the family pets as well!

They may, in later years, have received Christmas cards. I mentioned in a Christmas post from 2019 how the first Christmas modern card was invented by Sir Henry Cole in 1843, but recent research indicates that the origins of Christmas cards may in fact be much earlier.

I leave you now to enjoy Christmas with your loved ones, I hope it’s a truly special one for you. You can also catch my take on the Brontë Christmas on my YouTube channel The House Of Brontë. Thank you so much for all your positive comments, and to all who have subscribed and shared. It means a lot to me.

Here then is Anne Brontë’s ‘Music On Christmas Morning’, and may I wish you all a very merry Christmas! I will see you on Sunday, as always, for another new Brontë blog post.

‘Music I love – but never strain
Could kindle raptures so divine,
So grief assuage, so conquer pain,
And rouse this pensive heart of mine –
As that we hear on Christmas morn,
Upon the wintry breezes born.
Though Darkness still her empire keep,
And hours must pass, ere morning break;
From troubled dreams, or slumbers deep,
That music kindly bids us wake:
It calls us, with an angel’s voice,
To wake, and worship, and rejoice;
To greet with joy the glorious morn,
Which angels welcomed long ago,
When our redeeming Lord was born,
To bring the light of Heaven below;
The Powers of Darkness to dispel,
And rescue Earth from Death and Hell.
While listening to that sacred strain,
My raptured spirit soars on high;
I seem to hear those songs again
Resounding through the open sky,
That kindled such divine delight,
In those who watched their flocks by night.
With them – I celebrate His birth –
Glory to God, in highest Heaven,
Good will to men, and peace on Earth,
To us a saviour-king is given;
Our God is come to claim His own,
And Satan’s power is overthrown!
A sinless God, for sinful men,
Descends to suffer and to bleed;
Hell must renounce its empire then;
The price is paid, the world is freed.
And Satan’s self must now confess,
That Christ has earned a Right to bless:
Now holy Peace may smile from heaven,
And heavenly Truth from earth shall spring:
The captive’s galling bonds are riven,
For our Redeemer is our king;
And He that gave his blood for men
Will lead us home to God again.’

Christmas day draws ever nearer, and preparations are going full swing across the world, but the run up to the big day isn’t always a cheery one. It can be a challenging time, a time of grief, loss and confusion, as the residents of Haworth Parsonage found out as Christmas 1848 loomed.

On 19th December 1848 the great genius Emily Brontë died, aged just 30 years old. All round them in the following days celebrations were in full swing, but for the Brontë family in the parsonage things would never be the same again. Little could they have known that whilst they suffered a personal and insurmountable loss the world of literature had suffered a great loss too. 

Charlotte Brontë turned, as she so often did, to her pen to help her deal with her grief, and two letters she sent in the aftermath of Emily’s death paint a very moving, very mournful, picture. The first letter was sent to W. S. Williams, of Charlotte’s publishing house, on 20th December 1848:

“My dear sir, when I wrote in such haste to Dr. Epps, disease was making rapid strides, nor has it lingered since, the galloping consumption has merited its name – neither physician nor medicine are needed more. Tuesday night and morning saw the last hours, the last agonies, proudly ensured till the end. Yesterday Emily Jane Brontë died in the arms of those who loved her.

Thus the strange dispensation is completed – it is incomprehensible as yet to mortal intelligence. The last three months – ever since my brother’s death seem to us like a long, terrible dream. We look for support to God – and thus far he mercifully enables us to maintain our self-control in the midst of affliction whose bitterness none could have calculated on.”

Three days later Charlotte Brontë wrote to Ellen Nussey, the friend to whom she had last written on the mourning of Emily’s passing just four days earlier:

“Dear Ellen, Emily suffers no more either from pain or weakness now. She never will suffer more in this world – she is gone after a hard, short conflict. She died on Tuesday, the very day I wrote to you. I thought it very possible then she might be with us still for weeks and a few hours afterwards she was in Eternity – Yes – there is no Emily in Time or on Earth now – yesterday, we put her poor, wasted mortal frame quietly under the Church pavement. We are very calm at present, why should we be otherwise? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over – the spectacle of the pain of Death is gone by – the funeral day is past – we feel she is at peace, no need now to tremble for the hard frost and keen wind – Emily does not feel them. She has died in a time of promise – we saw her torn from life in its prime – but it is God’s will, and the place where she is gone is better than that she has left.”

Emily’s final moments were spent upon the couch which can still be found in Haworth Parsonage’s dining room – that’s it at the head of this post. This day in 1848 marked the funeral of Emily Jane Brontë. The world would never see her like again, but we can still turn to her incredible novel and her wonderful poetry. Poetry like ‘The Old Stoic’, below, in which Emily set out her attitude to life, and death. Its final words now adorn the Brontë memorial at Westminster Abbey’s Poets’ Corner.

‘Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish’d with the morn:
And, if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, ‘Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!’
Yea, as my swift days near their goal,
‘Tis all that I implore:
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.’

We remember Emily Brontë today and her faithful dog Keeper who, as Ellen Nussey said, lost all his former cheerfulness after Emily’s death and his role as chief mourner at her funeral. Let us turn now to cheerier matters, and I hope to see you on Wednesday for my traditional Christmas morning Brontë blog post.

Christmas is exactly ten days away – have you bought your presents and sent your cards yet? Perhaps you like to send one of those ‘round robin’ letters to family and friends updating them on the situation in your home. Charlotte Brontë sent something very similar to best friend Ellen (Nell) Nussey on this day in 1846, so I reproduce it for you below.

Being written by Charlotte Brontë, as masterful a letter writer as she was a novelist, this is rather better than the standard circular you might receive today. Not for Charlotte the usual platitudes, although she does provide that most English of conversation openers: an update on the weather.

We also hear how Anne Brontë is battling bravely against illness, and of how they are experiencing problems of a very different kind with brother Branwell Brontë – a man very much beholden to his demons at this time. The letter of 15th December 1846 follows:

“I hope you are not frozen up; the cold here is dreadful. I do not remember such a series of North-Pole days. England might really have taken a slide up into the Arctic Zone; the sky looks like ice; the earth is frozen; the wind is as keen as a two-edged blade. We have all had severe colds and coughs in consequence of the weather. Poor Anne has suffered greatly from asthma, but is now, we are glad to say, rather better. She had two nights last week when her cough and difficulty of breathing were painful indeed to hear and witness, and must have been most distressing to suffer; she bore it, as she bears all affliction, without one complaint, only sighing now and then when nearly worn out. She has an extraordinary heroism of endurance. I admire, but I certainly could not imitate her.

Meantime, I fear you dear Nell, must have had your fair share of miseries; the habitation of economical gentility would not be the most desirable in the world at this season – and I imagine you must often have longed to be back in your Mother’s warm room or at Brookroyd drawing-room’s comfortable fireside. Write soon again and let me know how you are.

You say I am “to tell you plenty”, what would you have me say – nothing happens at Haworth – nothing at least of a pleasant kind. One little incident occurred about a week ago to sting us to life, but it gives no more pleasure for you to hear it than it did for us to witness – you will scarcely thank me for adverting to it.

It was merely the arrival of a Sheriff’s Officer on a visit to Branwell – inviting him either to pay his debts or take a trip to York. Of course his debts had to be paid – it is not agreeable to lose money time after time in this way but it is ten times worse to witness the shabbiness of his behaviour on such occasions. But where is the use of dwelling on this subject, it will make him no better.

I am glad to hear that Mary Hurst is likely to marry well – is her intended a clergyman? I have not heard any further tidings from Mary Taylor. I send you the last French newspaper, several have missed coming – I don’t know why. Do you intend paying a visit to Sussex before you return home? Write again soon – your last epistle was very interesting –

I am dear Nell, Yours in spirit & flesh, CB”

North-pole days notwithstanding I hope you can join me next Sunday for another, and increasingly festive, Brontë blog post.

 

December rushes on apace, if you haven’t yet got your Christmas decorations up then it’s probably time to get that old faithful tree down from the attic and start untangling the fairy lights. In today’s post we’re going to look at a seasonal depiction in one of the great Brontë novels.

When we think of Christmas in a Brontë novel we probably think of its depiction in Wuthering Heights. It was the subjects of my latest YouTube video on my House Of Brontë channel, where we look at Emily Brontë’s description of a tense Christmas feast enlivened by the arrival of the Gimmerton band.
A grand house is also the scene for another festive celebration – but this time it appears in Charlotte Brontë’s final completed novel Villette. The grand La Terrase is the setting this time, as the grand family of the Count de Bassompierre, once known by the more down to earth name Home, celebrate an English style Christmas in the heart of Belgium:

‘Cheerful as my godmother naturally was, and entertaining as, for our sakes, she made a point of being, there was no true enjoyment that evening at La Terrasse, till, through the wild howl of the winter-night, were heard the signal sounds of arrival. How often, while women and girls sit warm at snug fire-sides, their hearts and imaginations are doomed to divorce from the comfort surrounding their persons, forced out by night to wander through dark ways, to dare stress of weather, to contend with the snow-blast, to wait at lonely gates and stiles in wildest storms, watching and listening to see and hear the father, the son, the husband coming home.

Father and son came at last to the château: for the Count de Bassompierre that night accompanied Dr. Bretton. I know not which of our trio heard the horses first; the asperity, the violence of the weather warranted our running down into the hall to meet and greet the two riders as they came in; but they warned us to keep our distance: both were white—two mountains of snow; and indeed Mrs. Bretton, seeing their condition, ordered them instantly to the kitchen; prohibiting them, at their peril, from setting foot on her carpeted staircase till they had severally put off that mask of Old Christmas they now affected. Into the kitchen, however, we could not help following them: it was a large old Dutch kitchen, picturesque and pleasant. The little white Countess danced in a circle about her equally white sire, clapping her hands and crying, “Papa, papa, you look like an enormous Polar bear.”

The bear shook himself, and the little sprite fled far from the frozen shower. Back she came, however, laughing, and eager to aid in removing the arctic disguise. The Count, at last issuing from his dreadnought, threatened to overwhelm her with it as with an avalanche.

“Come, then,” said she, bending to invite the fall, and when it was playfully advanced above her head, bounding out of reach like some little chamois.

Her movements had the supple softness, the velvet grace of a kitten; her laugh was clearer than the ring of silver and crystal; as she took her sire’s cold hands and rubbed them, and stood on tiptoe to reach his lips for a kiss, there seemed to shine round her a halo of loving delight. The grave and reverend seignor looked down on her as men do look on what is the apple of their eye.

“Mrs. Bretton,” said he: “what am I to do with this daughter or daughterling of mine? She neither grows in wisdom nor in stature. Don’t you find her pretty nearly as much the child as she was ten years ago?”

“She cannot be more the child than this great boy of mine,” said Mrs. Bretton, who was in conflict with her son about some change of dress she deemed advisable, and which he resisted. He stood leaning against the Dutch dresser, laughing and keeping her at arm’s length.

“Come, mamma,” said he, “by way of compromise, and to secure for us inward as well as outward warmth, let us have a Christmas wassail-cup, and toast Old England here, on the hearth.”

So, while the Count stood by the fire, and Paulina Mary still danced to and fro—happy in the liberty of the wide hall-like kitchen—Mrs. Bretton herself instructed Martha to spice and heat the wassail-bowl, and, pouring the draught into a Bretton flagon, it was served round, reaming hot, by means of a small silver vessel, which I recognised as Graham’s christening-cup.

“Here’s to Auld Lang Syne!” said the Count; holding the glancing cup on high. Then, looking at Mrs. Bretton.—

  “We twa ha’ paidlet i’ the burn

      Fra morning sun till dine,

  But seas between us braid ha’ roared

      Sin’ auld lang syne.

  “And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup,

      And surely I’ll be mine;

  And we’ll taste a cup o’ kindness yet

      For auld lang syne.”

“Scotch! Scotch!” cried Paulina; “papa is talking Scotch; and Scotch he is, partly. We are Home and de Bassompierre, Caledonian and Gallic.”

“And is that a Scotch reel you are dancing, you Highland fairy?” asked her father. “Mrs. Bretton, there will be a green ring growing up in the middle of your kitchen shortly. I would not answer for her being quite cannie: she is a strange little mortal.”

“Tell Lucy to dance with me, papa; there is Lucy Snowe.”

Mr. Home (there was still quite as much about him of plain Mr. Home as of proud Count de Bassompierre) held his hand out to me, saying kindly, “he remembered me well; and, even had his own memory been less trustworthy, my name was so often on his daughter’s lips, and he had listened to so many long tales about me, I should seem like an old acquaintance.”

Every one now had tasted the wassail-cup except Paulina, whose pas de fée, ou de fantaisie, nobody thought of interrupting to offer so profanatory a draught; but she was not to be overlooked, nor baulked of her mortal privileges.

“Let me taste,” said she to Graham, as he was putting the cup on the shelf of the dresser out of her reach.

Mrs. Bretton and Mr. Home were now engaged in conversation. Dr. John had not been unobservant of the fairy’s dance; he had watched it, and he had liked it. To say nothing of the softness and beauty of the movements, eminently grateful to his grace-loving eye, that ease in his mother’s house charmed him, for it set him at ease: again she seemed a child for him—again, almost his playmate. I wondered how he would speak to her; I had not yet seen him address her; his first words proved that the old days of “little Polly” had been recalled to his mind by this evening’s child-like light-heartedness.

“Your ladyship wishes for the tankard?”

“I think I said so. I think I intimated as much.”

“Couldn’t consent to a step of the kind on any account. Sorry for it, but couldn’t do it.”

“Why? I am quite well now: it can’t break my collar-bone again, or dislocate my shoulder. Is it wine?”

“No; nor dew.”

“I don’t want dew; I don’t like dew: but what is it?”

“Ale—strong ale—old October; brewed, perhaps, when I was born.”

“It must be curious: is it good?”

“Excessively good.”

And he took it down, administered to himself a second dose of this mighty elixir, expressed in his mischievous eyes extreme contentment with the same, and solemnly replaced the cup on the shelf.

“I should like a little,” said Paulina, looking up; “I never had any ‘old October:’ is it sweet?”

“Perilously sweet,” said Graham.

She continued to look up exactly with the countenance of a child that longs for some prohibited dainty. At last the Doctor relented, took it down, and indulged himself in the gratification of letting her taste from his hand; his eyes, always expressive in the revelation of pleasurable feelings, luminously and smilingly avowed that it was a gratification; and he prolonged it by so regulating the position of the cup that only a drop at a time could reach the rosy, sipping lips by which its brim was courted.

“A little more—a little more,” said she, petulantly touching his hand with the forefinger, to make him incline the cup more generously and yieldingly. “It smells of spice and sugar, but I can’t taste it; your wrist is so stiff, and you are so stingy.”

He indulged her, whispering, however, with gravity: “Don’t tell my mother or Lucy; they wouldn’t approve.”

“Nor do I,” said she, passing into another tone and manner as soon as she had fairly assayed the beverage, just as if it had acted upon her like some disenchanting draught, undoing the work of a wizard: “I find it anything but sweet; it is bitter and hot, and takes away my breath. Your old October was only desirable while forbidden. Thank you, no more.”

And, with a slight bend—careless, but as graceful as her dance—she glided from him and rejoined her father.

I think she had spoken truth: the child of seven was in the girl of seventeen.’

Within this vignette we see glimpses of the festive celebrations Charlotte Brontë must have known, with the passing of the wassail cup, and the singing of Auld Lang Syne, the song set down by Robbie Burns so popular on New Year’s Day today, and which we know Anne Brontë had a copy of in her handwritten music book – as we see in the image above.

Whatever your plans are for this weekend and for all of this festive month to come, I hope you get to pass round a wassail cup with your loved ones, and I hope you can join me next week for another new Brontë blog post.

We’ve entered Advent and that big day draws ever nearer. We’ll be looking at Christmas in the Brontë lives and works on this blog throughout December, as usual, but I’ll also be looking at it on my new YouTube channel.

If you haven’t checked it out, it’s called The House of Brontë and I’ll be looking at all things Brontë-related, as well as telling the story of this remarkable family from beginning to end.

In today’s video I look at Emily Brontë’s depiction of Christmas within Wuthering Heights and consider what that tells us about Christmas in Haworth Parsonage.

If you want to see more of my House Of Brontë videos just click the ‘subscribe’ button on YouTube. On Sunday it will be business as usual here with another new Brontë blog post, I hope you can join me then.

December has begun, a busy month for most of us, but especially for a certain couple back in December 1812. Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell had first met just months earlier, but already their wedding was fixed for 29th December – with that came not only the vows which would tie them together forever, and set literary history in process, but also a change of home. Patrick Brontë would be saying goodbye to Lousy Thorn Farm.

Both these people had already travelled a long way from the place of their birth, especially by early 19th century standards – the railway had yet to be invented, and long journeys were expensive and made by coach, ship or a combination of the two. Journeys such as the 400 miles or so that Maria made from Cornwall to the West Riding of Yorkshire were arduous and sometimes perilous – it was common for people to make their will before undertaking such a journey.

Maria Branwell herself experienced just how dangerous the journey could be – although she, thankfully, arrived safely, her belongings which were sent after her in a trunk were lost at sea when the ship carrying them was wrecked in a storm. 

Patrick had crossed the sea on his journey from County Down, in what is now Northern Ireland, to England, via Cambridge, and although he remained in close contact with his relatives he never saw the country of his birth again. By 1812 he was in his mid thirties and Maria in her late twenties, but when they met they realised that their life had changed forever. We can see this in a moving letter sent by Maria to her fiance on 24th October:

‘Unless my love for you were very great how could I so contentedly give up my home and all my friends… Yet these have lost their weight… the anticipation of sharing with you all the pleasures and pains, the cares and anxieties of life, of contributing to your comfort and becoming the companion of your pilgrimage, is more delightful to me than any other prospect which this world can possibly present.’

As December opened, plans for the wedding were heading into overdrive. As Brontë fans and regular readers of my blog may remember this wasn’t any old wedding – it was a triple wedding! At the same ceremony that would see Maria and Patrick wed, Maria’s cousin Jane and Patrick’s best friend William also wed. On the same day and at the same time, although in distant Cornwall, Maria’s sister (and Jane’s cousin) Charlotte Branwell was marrying yet another cousin Joseph Branwell. In 1884 this Charlotte Branwell’s daughter, another Charlotte Branwell, later gave this summary to a Cornish newspaper:

‘It was arranged that the two marriages [Patrick and Maria and William and Jane] should be solemnized on the same day as that of Miss Charlotte Branwell’s mother, fixed for 29th December in far off Penzance. And so, whilst the youngest sister of Mrs. Brontë was being married to her cousin, the late Mr Joseph Branwell, the double marriage, as already noted, was taking place in Yorkshire. Miss Charlotte Branwell also adds that at Guiseley not only did the Rev. Mr Brontë and the Rev. Mr Morgan perform the marriage ceremony for one another, but the brides acted as bridesmaids for each other. Mr Fennell, who was a clergyman of the Church of England, would have united the young people, but he had to give both brides away. Miss Branwell notes these facts to prove that the arrangement for the three marriages on the same day was no caprice or eccentricity on the part of Mr Brontë, but was made entirely by the brides. She has many a time heard her mother speak of the circumstances. “It is but seldom,” continues Miss Branwell, “that two sisters and four cousins are united in holy matrimony on the same day. Those who were united on that day bore that relationship to each other. Mrs. Brontë (formerly Maria Branwell) and my mother, Charlotte Branwell, were sisters; my father was their cousin; and Jane Fennell was a cousin to them all, her father, the Rev. J. Fennell, having married a Miss Branwell of a former generation. If the account I have given you is likely to be of any interest you are quite at liberty to use it as you think proper. I really think a deal of eccentricity has been ascribed to Mr Brontë which he never possessed, and from his letters to my dear mother, of which there are some still in existence, I should say he was a very worthy man, but one who had to pass through some great trials in the early death of a truly amiable wife and of a very gifted family.”’

That’s all clear as mud isn’t it, but what is clear is that the start of December 1812 must have seen lots of excitement and lots of planning. In another letter, dated 5th December, we hear that Maria is anticipating the baking:

‘We intend to set about making the cakes here next week, but as fifteen or twenty persons whom you mention live probably in your neighbourhood, I think it will be most convenient for Mrs Bedford to make a small one for the purpose of distributing there, which will save us the difficulty of sending so far.’

Mrs Bedford was presumably Patrick’s landlady for at the time he, as vicar of the parish of Hartshead cum Clifton (near Mirfield, which Anne Brontë would come to know so well), was renting accommodation at the less than delightfully named Lousy Thorn Farm in Hartshead.

What Patrick’s accommodation looked like we have little way of knowing – the building fell into disrepair, but it is now being restored and is currently called Thornbush Farm. The plan is to turn it into a Brontë visitor attraction, so I hope that comes to fruition!

After their marriage Patrick and Maria Brontë began their married life in a new home together – and this building still stands today. It is Clough House in Hightown near Liversedge, and the site bears a plaque remembering its illustrious former residents. The building itself can be seen at the head of this post.

Whatever your December plans are, I hope they progress smoothly and happily, and I hope to see you next week for another new Brontë blog post – on Sunday at the usual time, I’m sorry that today’s post was a day later than usual, December can be a hectic month for all of us!