The grey rainy weather yesterday casted an appropriate subdued mood over the graveyard at the Haworth Parish Church. The actual resting place of Charlotte and Emily Bronte is in a vault beneath the church, along with other family members.
Inside the Bronte Parsonage we gain a closer look inside the life and times of the Bronte sisters, from their childhood of fantasy tales, to the writing implements that captured their emotive stories and poetry. Their sensibility appears from childhood in their perfectionist and almost impossibly miniaturist writings inside their tiny handmade books, and later in their manuscripts, through to the intricate lace collar patterns found in Charlotte’s desk and the delicate linen collars and cuffs which adorned the sisters dresses. In contrast we learn of the shocking morbidity and mortality of the villagers of Haworth due to the poor sanitation of the times, which the Brontes’ father campaigned to address but to no avail. There is also a great sense of sadness of the early deaths of all the Bronte children.
Plenty to think about on the drive north to Alnwick, Northumberland, stopping on the way at Seaton Delaval Hall, in Seaton Sluice, where we ‘meet’ an altogether different family known as the Gay Delavals.
The fine country house by architect Sir John Vanbrugh was the subject of a public campaign a few years ago to save it from ruin. The flamboyant and eccentric Delavals meant the campaign gained lots of media coverage. The National Trust guides delight in the stories of the escapades that took place in the house, including a night when guests awoke in the morning to find themselves apparently lying on the ceiling. The chairs and tables were stuck to the ceiling, and the chandelier was in the middle of the floor.