Drama and English students visit Brontë Country

Lower Sixth English and Drama students departed for West Yorkshire on Friday, to explore the village of Haworth and the landscape that provided inspiration for the Brontë sisters’ novels and poetry. With Drama students studying Polly Teale’s play ‘Brontë’ and English students studying Gothic literature, the Yorkshire Moors were the perfect destination for a study weekend. 

Haworth did not disappoint in its dramatic and atmospheric weather and we arrived in the midst of a heavy rainstorm. The youth hostel was a converted Victorian Gothic mansion and made the perfect base to explore the local area. On Saturday students attended the Brontë Parsonage Museum and learned all about the background to the Brontë’s lives. Students attended a lecture and were given a guided tour of the Brontë household featuring original furniture and clothing as well as the local churchyard and surrounding lanes and fields, allowing us to walk in the steps of the Brontë family. 

The weather cheered up for our afternoon of meandering through the cobbled streets of Haworth and it just so happens we were visiting during Haworth’s annual 1940s weekend which made for a very surreal and bizarre mix when studying literature of the 1840s! Saturday evening entertainment consisted of a challenge set by Mrs Witcomb: to perform a scene from Polly Teale’s play in the style of Kneehigh Theatre.

Sunday saw us lace up our hiking boots, and with the expertise map reading skills of Mr Morgan, we walked to Top Withens: the remote remains of a farmhouse that is believed to be the inspiration for the Earnshaw family house in Emily Brontë’s novel ‘Wuthering Heights’. The trip ended with a ramble to the moorland above Top Withens where Mrs Bond shared some of Emily Brontë’s poetry inspired by that very setting.

A big thank you to our students for their enthusiasm and good humour throughout the study weekend. 

Mrs Laura Bond

Teacher of English, Second in Department