For alternate meanings see Haworth (disambiguation)

Haworth is a small village and tourist attraction, in the English county of West Yorkshire, and is best known for its association with the Brontë sisters.

Contents

1 Description 2 Location 3 See also 4 External links

Description

With its situation above the Worth Valley amid the bleak Pennine moors, Haworth is internationally famous for its connection with the Brontë sisters, who were born in Thornton (near Bradford), but who wrote most of their famous works while living at the Haworth Parsonage (which is now a museum owned and maintained by the Bronte Society), while their father was parson at the adjacent Haworth church.

Other attractions include the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, an authentic preserved steam railway which has been used as a setting for numerous period films and TV series, including The Railway Children (starring Jenny Agutter), Yanks (starring Richard Gere and Vanessa Redgrave), and Alan Parker's film version of Pink Floyd's The Wall (starring Bob Geldoff). Every year the village also hosts a very special 1940's weekend where locals and visitors alike don wartime attire for a host of nostalgic events. [N.B. For details of dates for the 1940s weekend and other events held in Haworth please visit the events section of the Haworth Traders' Association website.]

Many public footpaths lead out of the village, and there is much scope for rambling, though perhaps the most famous walk leads past Stanbury Reservoir to the picturesque (but unspectacular) Brontë waterfalls, the Brontë Bridge, and the Brontë Stone Chair in which (it is said) the sisters took turns to sit and write their first stories. This path (which forms part of the 64 km (40 mile) long Brontë Way) then leads out of the valley and up on the moors to Ponden Hall (Thrushcross Grange in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights) and Top Withens, a desolate ruin which was (reputedly) the setting for the farmstead Wuthering Heights in the novel. [N.B. Top Withens can also be reached by a shorter walking route departing from the nearby village of Stanbury.]

Back in the village of Haworth itself there are many good tea rooms, souvenir and antiquarian bookshops, restaurants, pubs and hotels (including the "Black Bull" - where Branwell Brontë's demise into alcoholism and opium addiction allegedly began). As such, Haworth makes an ideal base for exploring the principal attractions of Brontë Country, while still being close to the major cities of Bradford and Leeds. Further afield lies the historic city of York, and the spa towns of Harrogate and Ilkley - popular spa towns on the edge of the very beautiful Yorkshire Dales National Park to the North.

Haworth is a very popular destination for Japanese tourists, and many of the signposts have Japanese as well as English writing. Wuthering Heights has a cult following in Japan.

Location

Haworth is located in the high Pennine moors, some 3 miles south west of the larger town of Keighley and 10 miles west of the city of Bradford. The surrounding areas include Oakworth and Oxenhope. Nearby villages include Stanbury and Lumbfoot.

Grid reference: SE030372 (http://getamap.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/getamap/frames.htm?mapAction=gaz&gazName=g&gazString=SE030372)

See also

• Brontë Country
• Brontë sisters

External links

• Haworth village (http://www.haworth-village.org.uk/)
• Haworth village (http://www.haworth.yorks.com/)
• Brontë country (http://www.bronte-country.com/)
• Haworth Cam (http://www.bbc.co.uk/england/webcams/scenic_views/bradford_haworth_bronte_street_webcam.shtml)