Around a million visitors a year beat a path to Haworth, the small West Yorkshire town nestling in the windy moors of the Worth Valley – mainly to see the home of the Brontë sisters.
The house that writers Charlotte, Anne and Emily shared with their father, church minister Patrick, and their wayward brother, Branwell, is a major tourist attraction. Visitors wander around the parsonage and surrounding cobbled streets to soak up the atmosphere of just how the Brontës lived two centuries ago.
But there is a site that is equally important to the story of perhaps Britain’s greatest literary family, around six miles or so away in the village of Thornton, on the western edge of the Bradford district: the birthplace of the three sisters.
The premises that takes up 72-74 Market Street has had various uses, from an apartment block to a cafe, but a campaign has been launched to turn it into an attraction that would complement Haworth’s enduring appeal.
It is estimated it will cost about £600,000 to buy the property, which is in a state of disrepair and neglect, and sympathetically renovate the Grade II* listed building into a tourist attraction comprising a cultural and educational centre, a cafe and holiday accommodation.
But for Christa Ackroyd – a Bradford-born journalist whose face is a familiar one in Yorkshire after fronting local TV news programmes between 1990 and 2013 – it’s not something that just will happen, she believes, but that has to.
Ackroyd grew up in Bradford as an adopted child and feels the negative press the city receives has affected young people’s aspirations and self-belief. “Bradford is a much-maligned place,” she said. “There was a survey this year that said it was the worst place to live in the country.”
Yet when her father suggested she look to the Brontë sisters for inspiration, he was right to do so, she says.
“Here were three girls from Bradford – they were without money, their mother had died so they grew up in a single-parent family, and they were told in no uncertain terms that their dreams of writing weren’t for the likes of them. Did they give up? No. Did they go on to achieve their ambitions? Yes.”
It’s that inspirational aspect of the sisters – they went on to write seven of the most celebrated novels in the English language between them, including Jane Eyre by Charlotte, Wuthering Heights by Emily and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne – that Ackroyd wants to drive home with the campaign. “Imagine a young girl from Bradford coming into this house and standing by the same fireplace that the Brontës grew up in front of, and walking in the footsteps of that greatness,” she said. “What better way to tell her that yes, she can follow her dreams and make them real.”
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She would like the sisters’ birthplace to become an inspiring place for everyone. “The Brontês wrote about race,” she said. “Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights was almost certainly black. They also wrote about class, gender and the treatment of women. All these are issues that people today are talking about. The story of the Brontës is as fascinating as the novels they wrote, and it can be an important tool to empower young people today.” The plan is to get the house renovated and open by 2025, when Bradford assumes the title of UK City of Culture. An online crowdfunder has been launched, and last week the project was given an undisclosed amount from the City of Culture capital fund.
The cost of purchasing the property is £300,000, with the same again expected to be spent on transforming it. Ackroyd said: “We have had amazing support from Bradford people so far but we are now looking for businesses, organisations and foundations from across the country to support us.”
One of the driving forces behind the scheme to bring the Brontë birthplace back into use is Steve Stanworth, who 20 years ago discovered and cleared the largely forgotten ruins of the old Bell Chapel in Thornton, where Patrick Brontë preached and the sisters were baptised.
“Bringing the sisters’ birthplace back into use like this will be the final piece of the Brontë puzzle,” he says.