Thornton Viaduct
The Black Horse is the only surviving pub from the time of the Brontës’ residence in Thornton.
During the time of the Brontës, Kipping House was occupied by The Firths, who were close friends of the family. Elizabeth Firth was a godmother to both Charlotte and Anne. The original eighteenth-century Kipping Independent Chapel was replaced by today’s grand edifice in 1843.
The Bell Chapel was the local nickname for the original St James’ Church, whose ruins are seen in the lee of Thornton Hall on the opposite side of the road from the current late nineteenth-century building. The Bell Chapel was built in 1612, though it stood on the site of earlier chapels that may have been here as early as the twelfth century. Revd Patrick Brontë was curate here from 1815 to 1820 and the Bell Chapel was partially rebuilt under his direction in 1818 – probably the third time the chapel was altered. The striking cupola that still stands on the site and was the building’s defining feature was only added at this time, along with a series of new windows. The evocative ruins of the Bell Chapel are now grade II listed. Inside the current church, there is a permanent exhibition of the Brontës in Thornton, as well as the bell and stone font from the old chapel, which would have been used to christen all of the Brontë children except Maria.
The cupola of the old Bell Chapel
Elizabeth Gaskell published her biography of Charlotte Brontë in 1857, just two years after her death, and is responsible for many of the myths about the Brontës that were perpetuated for years. One such myth was that Patrick was an eccentric patriarch who remained aloof and distant from his motherless children. Another was that Haworth was some remote, primitive, rural village, which completely ignores the Industrial Revolution and the impact it had on life in the township, as it did on Thornton. Finally she created the downtrodden and frail spinster image of Charlotte Brontë that persists to this day.
The Brontë Birthplace was bought and restored by Yorkshire novelist Barbara Whitehead in 1997, who remained there until 2007. Today it is home to Emily’s café and restaurant. The Charlotte Stone is built into the wall of the twentieth-century extension that houses the café and is carved with a poem by Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy.
The bright jay has the equally colourful scientific name garrulus glandarius. This shy pinkish-brown crow has a white throat and rump and bright blue feathers on its wings. It is common across the UK and most likely found in search of acorns, beech mast or hazelnuts. Jays play a hugely important role in the distribution of oak trees due to their penchant for burying large numbers of acorns in the autumn.
The Brontë Stones Walk
A beautiful linear route over the moor from Thornton to Haworth that passes each of the four Brontë Stones. The route also takes in Ogden Kirk, Denholme Beck, Nan Scar and Oxenhope, following the Brontë Way in places but elsewhere offering interesting alternatives to this well-trodden trail.
‘The idea of being authors was as natural to us as walking’
Distance: 9 miles (14.3km)
Ascent: 365m
Difficulty: Moderate
Public Transport: To get back from Haworth to Oxenhope, take the B1/B3 bus (Brontë Bus, towards Keighley) from one of the stops at the bottom of Main Street or by Haworth Station. Get off at Cross Roads and cross the A629 to catch the 67/68 bus (Keighley Bus Company, towards Bradford) to Thornton.
Parking: Pay car parks in Haworth. Free car parking near Oxenhope Station and street parking in Thornton.
Refreshments: There are various pubs and cafés in Haworth and Thornton. In between, there are pubs in Oxenhope and a cafe at Oxenhope Station, and Asa Nicholson’s Tea Room is a 1/4 mile off the route on the A644 at Keelham.
The Brontë family’s closest friends in Thornton were the Firths who lived at Kipping House. Members of the two families met often, took tea and dined together and sometimes went for walks in the surrounding countryside. Patrick enjoyed the ‘sweet counsel’ of the head of the household, Dr John Scholefield Firth. After moving to the parsonage in Haworth, Patrick remained in touch and often made the walk back over the hills to Thornton. Sadly, he soon found himself returning to comfort a dying man and, on 2nd January 1821, he conducted the funeral service of his friend. Later that month, Patrick’s wife Maria fell gravely ill and Dr Firth’s only daughter, Elizabeth, and her stepmother provided practical help. Elizabeth took the two youngest Brontë children to Kipping for a month to look after them and after Mrs Brontë’s death, Patrick corresponded with Elizabeth. It has been conjectured that Patrick made a marriage proposal to Elizabeth before she married Revd James Clarke Franks, but whatever the exact truth, their friendship remained for many years.
From the Brontë Birthplace, follow Market Street west to the junction with West Lane and head straight on across the open ground to the left of the Black Horse. Continue down through the small park, then turn right on the main road. Beyond the Great Northern, turn second right up Royd Street, shortly before the site of Thornton Station. At the top, turn left along a grassy bank below a small playground to reach a vehicle track heading right up the hill. At the top, turn left through a gap and join the Brontë Way as it crosses several small fields across the hillside.
Though only a small village when the Brontës lived there, Thornton had six pubs at the time. The Black Bull stood in the middle of the junction of Market Street and West Lane by the Black Horse, the heart of the village before Thornton Road (the B6145) was built in 1826.
It was while living in Thornton that Patrick Brontë published two books: The Cottage in the Woods in 1815; and The Maid of Killarney (or Albion and Flora) in 1818. It may have been these publications which inspired the Brontë children to write.
Thornton Station opened in 1878 as the terminus of a rural branch line out of Bradford, part of the Great Northern Railway. It stood near the end of the impressive Thornton Viaduct and had an island platform reached by an iron bridge from the road. The line was extended to Keighley in 1884, the so-called ‘Alpine route’ across the hills via Cullingworth. The station was used primarily for goods – wool, coal and livestock – and the goods platform can still be seen from the retaining wall alongside Thornton Road. The primary school grounds have been built around what remains.
The now-fenced path soon enters Thornton Cemetery, where you’ll find the Brontë Stone, carved with a poem by Jeanette Winterson. Bear left on the lower path to pass the stone on the left under some trees. Continue to some steps, following these back up to the higher path and a gate at the far end. Follow the path above Close Head and climb to a bend, where you bear left through the gate. Follow the edge of the fields through a series of gates to reach Close Head House, where a track leads up to the road near the White Horse. Follow the road left for 100m through Well Heads, then turn right at a sign. The path bends left to cut a defined line across a series of fields towards Morton Farm.
Keep to the left of the farm buildings at Morton, heading straight across the track and through a field gate. Descend diagonally across further fields with a good view down Denholme Beck to Doe Park Reservoir, then follow a wall across the hillside towards the building at Denholme Clough. Cut left through a gate just before the stream and soon after join the drive leading up to the A644. There is a teashop less than a 1/4 mile along this road in Keelham if refreshments are needed before heading out onto the moor.
Follow the road left briefly, then turn right up Cragg Lane. Almost immediately turn right at a sign, following a path behind the houses that soon pulls up to the A629 through Denholme Gate. Bear left across the road and follow Black Edge Lane up onto the enclosed wastes above. After half a mile, turn left through a gate at an obvious junction, then drop down to join Foreside Lane leading right past the ruins of Ash Tree Farm.
Doe Park was the lower part of a fifteenth-century deer park enclosed by the Tempest family as a hunting chase for red deer. It was surrounded by an earth bank and wooden palisade fence and covered most of the valley around the Denholme Beck between Den
holme and Cullingworth. The name Denholme Gate refers to one of the entrances to the deer park. Eventually deer hunting fell out of fashion and the land was divided up when the Tempest family fortune was gambled away in the early seventeeth century.
Continue along Foreside Lane, heading straight on through a gate where the track bends left near a ruined barn. Beyond the next gate near the site of Moscow Farm, fork right as the path gets wetter to soon reach the dramatic crest of Ogden Kirk, near the far end of which you’ll find the Emily Stone. Turn right here along the main path up the side of Ogden Clough, then fork right again soon after another gate. This well-defined path leads over the shoulder of Thornton Moor and there are great views from the top over Bradford and Rombalds Moor.
Moscow Farm, like many remote dwellings was given a name befitting its far-off location.
Ogden Kirk, site of the Emily Stone
Continue down Hambleton Lane, soon joining a fence line to descend steeply to Thornton Moor Conduit. Head straight on past the gate, then fork left at a sign to descend past the remains of a metal hut to an old wall line. After a stone stoop, the path bears left before descending straight down the hillside to reach a bridge over Stubden Conduit. However, part-way down, near a waymark post lost in the reeds, you can head right through the reeds (not as wet as they look) to the abandoned farm of The Hays in the lee of a solitary sycamore tree. The Book Stones are a bonus carving that take in this beautiful vista over Oxenhope.
Turn left along Stubden Conduit and follow its beautiful meandering line around several steep cloughs. After the wooded hollow of Nan Scar, where twite may be seen if you’re lucky, the path reaches a gate for the first time. Leave the conduit and follow the top of the field down past a heap of old stone troughs to Farther Isle. Follow the track left of the farm and wind steadily down to a gate near the corner of Leeming Reservoir. Head straight across the track beyond, following a signed path steeply down into the valley. Turn right past Egypt Cottages and join the road as it crosses Leeming Brook and continues through Back Leeming all the way to the B6141.
In the 1880s there was a rifle range at the bottom of the wooded beck of Nan Scar. Its name comes from the Welsh word nant for a small river. Further up the stream, there is a local nature reserve, where rare birds like twite and honey buzzards may be seen.
Leeming Reservoir’s ornate valve tower
Thornton Moor and Stubden Reservoirs were built in the 1880s by the Bradford Corporation, the former acting as the city’s high-level water supply. Their conduits string out across the northern slopes of Nab Hill, the higher feeding straight into Thornton Moor Reservoir, the lower passing through the hillside to Stubden Reservoir – the air shafts across the hill mark its line. The whole hillside was cleared of its population to prevent contamination of the drinking water and the remains of many of the old farms are identifiable by the presence of the lone sycamore trees planted to shelter them.
Follow the B641 left into Oxenhope, then turn right at the crossroads just beyond the old chimney of Lowertown Mill. Follow quiet Yate Lane all the way to Dark Lane, then turn left down to the A6033. Bear left across the road to follow Harry Lane towards Oxenhope Station. On the bend, bear right on a path past Wilton House and cross Bridgehouse Beck. Stay alongside the stream to join a track past the water works, then bear right before North Ives Barn and re-cross the stream.
Rather than one village, Oxenhope is a conglomeration of several hamlets, including Uppertown, Lowertown, Leeming, Shaw and Marsh. Oxenhope only became the village’s name when it was adopted by the station built as the terminus of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway in 1867.
Continue along the right bank of Bridge-house Beck until the path climbs to North Ives Bottom. Turn left through a gate in front of the building and descend past the ruin at Far North Ives. Continue straight on to rejoin the stream, then follow a path along the bottom edge of a series of fields towards the edge of Haworth. At the end, turn left on Brow Road, then right on the main road. Turn left in front of Haworth Station and cross high above the railway before bearing right up Butt Lane. Head straight across the road at the top to cut up to Main Street near the Fleece. Head up the cobbled hill, then turn left up the steps after the Black Bull to pass through the gate by St Michael’s Church and reach the Brontë Parsonage. The Anne Stone stands at the top of Parson’s Field and is reached by a gate just beyond the parsonage.
The Reverend Donne in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley was inspired by Joseph Brett Grant who was Patrick Brontë’s curate. He became the first vicar of Oxenhope in 1851, when the fine Norman-style church was built there. Previously Oxenhope had been a part of Bradford parish; indeed its name means ‘valley of the oxen’, referring to a time when it was part of the estate of Bradford Manor.
The Parsonage would probably have felt far more austere when the Brontës were children as it was right on the edge of the village with the moors quite literally as its back garden. There were no trees around it and inside there were bare walls, cold stone floors and no curtains. However, the Brontë children fared better than the majority of Haworth’s inhabitants. Forty per cent of children born in Haworth didn’t reach their sixth birthday and the overall life expectancy was about twenty-five, almost the worst in the country. In 1850 Charles Babbage was sent by the government and wrote a damning report about conditions here and the need for some kind of sewage system. As Patrick suspected, Charles saw the churchyard (with approximately 42,000 bodies packed in it) as contributing to the problems of the village and one of the first recommendations he made was to close the churchyard down. Babbage also suggested that trees were planted in the church yard, to help to break up the bodies and drain the soil.
Donkey Bridge
The Black Bull public house was a favourite drinking hole of Branwell Brontë. Branwell was once Secretary to the Freemasons Lodge of the Three Graces. who met at this inn. According to Elizabeth Gaskell, Branwell’s great conversational talents ‘procured him the undesirable distinction of having his company recommended by the landlord of the Black Bull to any chance traveller who might happen to feel solitary or dull over his liquor.’ Branwell was also known on occasion to make his escape through the back door, or by jumping through the kitchen window, when his family came to seek him at the front door of the inn.
The Emily Brontë Walk
A hearty yomp across the wild moorland Emily loved to roam high above Haworth and Oxenhope. The route takes in Top Withins, Alcomden Stones and Ponden Hall, as well as various other beautiful sites. Parts of the route are wet year-round so good footwear is essential and, although most of it is on clear paths, a compass and good navigational skills may be needed in bad weather.
‘I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading: It vexes me to choose another guide.’
Distance: 14½ miles (23.7km)
Ascent: 510m
Difficulty: Strenuous
Public Transport: Oxenhope and Haworth are on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway and served by regular buses from Keighley, Bradford and Hebden Bridge. If struggling, a bus can also be caught from Stanbury.
Parking: Free street parking in Oxenhope. Car park at Oxenhope Station may be available by arrangement.
Refreshments: There is little on the remote moorland route between Oxenhope and Stanbury, other than the Waggon & Horses pub on the A6033.
Emily Brontë was the most reclusive of the sisters and so she remains something of a mystery. She suffered extreme homesickness when away from the Parsonage, and was more than happy to remain at home in the role of housekeeper after the death of Aunt Branwell. Her great love was for the solitude of the moors and the company of animals, and she roamed these heights extensively. She died of tuberculosis on 18 December 1848, shortly after her brother Branwell’s death.
From Oxenhope Station, follow Mill Lane past the overflow car park up to the main road. Head straight across into Dark Lane, then turn right along quiet Yate Lane. Reaching the B6141, turn left past the chimney, then firs
t right along Jew Lane. Fork right down a dead-end at the bottom of Back Leeming. At the end, continue up past Milton House, then fork left up the side of the dam wall. Turn left then immediately right at the top to join a path around the shore of Leeming Reservoir.
At the far end of the Leeming Reservoir, turn right and, just before crossing Stony Hill Clough, turn sharply left up to a narrow gate. A good path leads straight up the slope, crossing Stubden Conduit before nearing a lone sycamore tree in the ruins of The Hays, by which stands the Book Stones. Turn left across the rushes near a waymark post to reach this great viewpoint.
Shelter cairn on Nab Hill
Return to the main path and climb to a sign on the crest. Bear right here and then head straight on across Thornton Moor Conduit and climb up towards Hambleton Top. The Emily Stone is carved at Ogden Kirk, three-quarters of a mile on along this track (see Brontë Stones Walk for details), but this route turns right through a gate after 150m, following a faint path angling up one of the old holloways leading to Deep Arse Delf. Turn right at the top (joining the route from Hamleton Top) and follow a clear path along the hillside towards the prominent shelter cairns on Nab Hill. Fork right to reach these, then continue along the edge to the next prominent cairn, below which is the Mist Stone, one of Simon Armitage’s Stanza Stones.
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