UK Travel - Part 16

Hadrian’s Wall

England

by Keith Kellett

We were taking our visitors from Australia up to Edinburgh, and they asked that, on the way, they be taken to see Hadrian’s Wall. They had been shown a section of it, and were dissatisfied; it was just outside Newcastle, and was just … a piece of wall. No atmosphere at all.

But, there were nearly 80 miles of Hadrian’s Wall, which stretched from England’s west coast, at Bowness on Solway, near Carlisle to the east coast, at the appropriately-named Wallsend, near Newcastle. Although generations of farmers and builders over the years used it as a quarry for ready-dressed stone, it remains easily discernible in many places, mainly in the more remote areas, which were not so easily reached.

There are also extensive remains and a Roman museum at Corbridge, which we passed on the way up, but couldn’t stop, because we were late for an urgent appointment in Edinburgh.

Instead, we took our visitors to what are probably the best viewpoints on the way home; the old fort at Housesteads, high on a lonely moor and another fort, just outside a farmhouse at Birdoswald.

There were ‘milecastles’ at intervals along the Wall, the remnants of some of them still remain … these were a ‘Roman Mile’ apart; A Roman mile was Mille passuus = 1000 paces, which is not far off a modern ‘mile’. At less frequent intervals were larger forts such as the ones we visited. Housesteads was preserved because it was in such a remote location; Birdoswald because a past owner of the house was interested in such things.

Hadrian, or, to give him his Roman name, Publius Aelius Hadrianus, certainly got around. He left his mark all over the old Roman Empire. We’ve seen two Hadrian’s Gates, one in Athens and one in Jerash, in Jordan as well as Hadrian’s Temple in Ephesus, Turkey. But, probably the most famous thing that bears his name is the Wall.

Unlike Queen Victoria, who never saw most of the places named after her, Hadrian did actually visit Britain; he visited most places in the Roman Empire, both as Emperor and in his ‘previous existence’ as a soldier. He visited in AD 122, and said something like ‘Let there be a Wall’, went back to Rome, and left the Roman governor, one Julius Agricola, to get on with it.

Hadrian was born in AD 76, succeeding Trajan, to whom he was distantly related, as Emperor in AD 117 until his death in AD 138. Before his succession, he had a distinguished career as a soldier, and was, for a short time, governor of Athens.

One thing Hadrian was noted for was his beard. His predecessors as Emperor, with the exception of Nero, were all clean-shaven; his successors all had beards, following the fashion he set. During his time in Athens, he developed a love for all things Greek, and, in Greece, the beard was regarded as a symbol of wisdom and learning. But, a partial reason may have been simply to cover up his badly-scarred face.

Received wisdom says the wall was built for defensive purposes, to keep the Pictish and Scottish hordes out … that’s what we were taught in school. But, someone pointed out that the ‘vallum’, or ditch is on the wrong side of the wall for that.

Having served in the Armed Forces, I did once whimsically think it was the result of the Roman equivalent of ‘I say, Sergeant Major! Can’t you find these men something to do?’ I was extremely surprised to find that other, far more scholarly, authorities agreed with me. It was suggested that it kept the army occupied during a period of relative quiet.

Or, it could have been that the wall simply marked the boundary of the Roman Empire, and served the secondary purpose of discouraging small-scale invasions and incursions. Other such walls are known to have been built in eastern Europe, although they were built of wood. They also found the remains of an ancient stone wall in Libya, which may have marked the southern boundary of the Roman Empire.

There are, however, many more places on ‘our’ Hadrian’s Wall. Maybe an excuse for another visit?

Editor’s Note: March, 2010 marks the anniversary of the Romans leaving Britain 1600 years ago. Torches will be lit all along Hadrian’s Wall to mark the occasion.
For more information: news.bbc.co.uk

If You Go:

For much information about transportation, accommodation, etc. visit the Hadrian’s Wall page of the English Heritage website.
The A69 Carlisle-Newcastle road parallels Hadrian’s Wall, and the main sites are signposted from here. If you don’t have your own transport, the Hadrian’s Wall Country Bus (Service AD122 … easy to remember; the year they started building the Wall) runs between Newcastle and Carlisle between Easter and October. Timetables, etc. at www.hadrians-wall.org
Or, you can walk! In addition to many shorter, local walks, there’s an 84-mile-long National Trail which follows the line of the Wall.

One For the Road – Newcastle Pub Walk

About the author:
Having written for fun while serving in the Royal Air Force, Keith Kellett developed his hobby into a business when he retired. He has published in many print magazines, and on the Web. He lives near Salisbury, in the south of England, and is presently trying to get his head around blogging, podcasting and video.

All photos are by Keith Kellett.

England: Shakespeare’s London

by Andrea Kirkby

Little appears to be left of Shakespeare’s London. We know where he worked, and where he lived; but the Blackfriars theatre is no more, and though Ireland Yard (where Shakespeare bought a house when he could afford it) still exists, the buildings are much later. Nothing’s left of his successive houses in Bishopsgate, Southwark, and Cripplegate, and the Globe has gone along with all the other theatres.

So you might think an article on Shakespeare’s London would be quite short. But in fact, it’s amazing how many places are left that are linked with his life. Let me take you along on a tour of Shakespeare’s London; though we’re going barely a couple of miles in distance, we’ll be going back four centuries in time.

Let’s start at the Inns of Court, the centre of London’s legal world. In Queen Elizabeth’s day they represented an alternative to the great universities as a place of education, and had their own literary subculture. The poet, and later divine, John Donne, studied at Stavies Inn and then Lincoln’s Inn after three years at Oxford; masques by Francis Beaumont (one half of Beaumont and Fletcher), and George Chapman were performed in the Inns – they also sponsored a performance at Whitehall, with scenery by Inigo Jones. Plays and masques were put on every year to celebrate Christmas – which then stretched all the way from the beginning of Advent in November to Candlemas, in February. In 1602, the Middle Temple hosted the premiere of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men; Shakespeare himself probably took a role. Amazingly, Middle Temple Hall, scene of that performance, is still not only intact, but almost unchanged from how it looked then.

The hall was completed in 1573, and is one of the latest works of Gothic architecture in England. It’s a refined work, with lozenge patterns in the brick of its walls, and a glorious double hammer beam roof. (I’m blasé about hammerbeams. I’m East Anglian, and in my home counties of Norfolk and Suffolk we have some of the greatest hammer beam roofs around. But this is an immensely impressive roof, among the best anywhere.) The wooden screen is finely carved, and the stained glass shows the coats of arms of Elizabethan members of the Temple. You see just what Shakespeare himself would have seen – even down to the way the tables are still arranged in long rows, since Middle Temple Hall is still in use as the dining hall in which students eat their dinners. (That explains why it is not always open. It’s worth visiting when the Middle Temple has an open day.)

It’s a short walk from the Middle Temple to one of the few buildings in City of London that survived the Great Fire of 1666 – Prince Henry’s Room, a superb testament to the richness of Jacobean architecture and decoration. Its proud wooden façade, two huge bow windows surmounting a minor entrance to the Temple, gives you some idea of its wealth; inside is a splendid plasterwork ceiling, decorated with the three feathers that are the badge of the Prince of Wales.

It was built in 1610, when James I’s son Henry was Prince of Wales, and when Shakespeare was writing his last play, The Tempest. (Henry died young; that’s why you haven’t heard of Henry IX. Instead, we got Charles I – and a Civil War.)

The Middle Temple wasn’t the only one to host a Shakespeare premiere. Gray’s Inn Hall – neater, and smaller, and twenty years older than Middle Temple Hall – hosted an entertainment by a then relatively little known playwright in 1594: The Comedy of Errors.

The Inn’s Chronicles show that actors were not considered respectable enough to consort with up-and-coming young lawyers; they refer to the play being put on by ‘A company of base and common fellows.’ Presumably that included one William Shakespeare.

Although, like Middle Temple Hall, Gray’s Inn suffered damage from bombing in the Second World War, it’s been well restored. The hammer beam roof (only a single hammer beam here) was rebuilt; but the wooden screen, said to have been built from the timber of ships in the Armada, was saved. So again, what you see is pretty much what Shakespeare saw.

Staples Inn [TOP PHOTO], on Holborn, has no Shakespearian connection as far as I know, but it is one of the best examples of half timbered building remaining from his London. It was another of the Inns of Court in those days, before they consolidated into the four that remain today. Its long façade and many gables curve sinuously where the wood has warped with age, and the timber beams set up an insistent rhythm that beats against the whitewashed plaster between. Outside, traffic hoots and purrs its way down Holborn; but in the little court inside the Inn, it’s quiet and cool, as if you’d stepped back five centuries in time.

Further down Holborn is Ely Place, and here again the Shakespearian connection is a little tenuous; it’s mentioned in Richard III:

My Lord of Ely… when I was last in Holborn
I saw good strawberries in your garden there;
I do beseech you send for some of them.

This was the London palace of the Bishop of Ely; you can still see his chapel, the Gothic church of St Etheldreda. But Shakespeare being a man of the theatre, I think you would have been more likely to find him in the little pub that is tucked away down a dark little passage, drinking a pint of beer. The Mitre was originally the hostelry for the Bishop’s servants, and you can still get a pint of beer here, and admire the remains of a cherry tree in the front bar round which Queen Elizabeth was said to have danced on May Day.

And there is still a Strawberry Faire in Ely Place every summer.

But to track Shakespeare down in the theatreland of his day, you’ll need to cross the river Thames, and head to Southwark. The theatres came here because it was outside the boundary of the City of London, and so outside its restrictive by-laws. As well as the theatres, there were bear-pits, taverns, bath houses, and brothels; Southwark was where London came on holiday. It must have had something of the atmosphere of Coney Island or Blackpool.

A lot of what you see this side of the river is nineteenth century; the railway arches, the fine Victorian buildings on Borough High Street, the old warehouses by what used to be docks and wharves. But look hard and there are still vestiges of Shakespeare.

For instance in Southwark Cathedral – which was, in Shakespeare’s day, just the parish church of St Mary Overy – you can find a monument to Edmund Shakespeare, the playwright’s brother. When he was buried here in 1607 the family had enough money to send him off like a gentleman, with the tolling of the great bell, for which they paid 20 shillings; even so, he was buried in an unmarked grave.

Nearby is the new Globe Theatre, a rebuilt Elizabethan theatre that looks like a half-timbered gasometer. American director Sam Wanamaker had the idea of rebuilding it after a fruitless search for traces of Shakespeare’s theatre; the Globe now plays both classical drama, and contemporary pieces, throughout the summer. It’s an authentic audience experience; ‘groundlings’ are admitted for only five pounds, but have to stand in the pit throughout the performance – no sitting allowed.

But again, I feel closest to Shakespeare in the pub. Pubs and theatre were always linked, and a number of inns’ courtyards served as impromptu theatres, with actors performing on a cart in the yard, and the audience leaning over the balustrades of the galleries all around.

Southwark’s inns and taverns were notorious. Borough High Street was the main road south out of London; the Tabard tavern was where Chaucer’s Canterbury pilgrims began their journey. Shakespeare sets Jack Cade’s plea in Henry VI Part II at the White Hart, and there’s a strange back-story link too; Sir John Fastolf, the ‘original’ of Falstaff, owned a tavern just down the road, the Boar’s Head. Though most of the taverns have gone, the names of the little alleyways that run off the High Street still commemorate pints sunk and pubs past.

Head for the George and you’ll see a rare survival; the last galleried inn in London. What you see dates from 1676, and is only one wing of what would have been three, surrounding the entire yard; but what you see probably isn’t very different from the inn Shakespeare might have known, since the rebuilding was faithful to the original design.

And the George might not be a bad place to stop. But I’m off up the road, to the Market Porter in Borough Market, for a bag of crisps and a pint of porter – or as Shakespeare might have said, cakes and ale.

Shakespeare Walking Tour in London

If You Go:

Tube stations for the tour: Temple; Chancery Lane; London Bridge.

Photo credits:
Staple Inn: Edwardx / CC BY-SA
Lincoln’s Inn, off Lincoln’s Inn: Mike Quinn / Gateway to Lincoln’s Inn, off Lincoln’s Inn Fields, WC2
Prince Henry’s Room 17 Fleet Street: User:Mahlum / Public domain
Gatehouse, Ely Place: Colin Smith / Ely Place
Southwark Cathedral: Kevin Danks / CC BY-SA
George Inn pub sign: Nickfraser / CC BY-SA

About the author:
Andrea Kirkby has been traveling since her grandfather took her off to Bergen and Hardangerfjord at the age of nine. She has walked to Santiago de Compostela, climbed Oman’s highest mountain, and drank an awful lot of Belgian beer. After too many years in investment banking, she now works as a freelance writer – and has more time for traveling, by plane, train, 2CV and camel.

Legend of the “Hunderprest” Vampire of Melrose Abbey

Melrose, Scotland

by Norman A. Rubin

In the heart of the Scottish Borders, Melrose is the perfect holiday destination for, walking, cycling and rugby. Melrose also boasts some of the best salmon and trout fishing in Scotland. Visitors to Melrose are drawn by a range of attractions. Best known is the ruins of the Melrose Abbey, which lies on the north east side of the centre of the town and, off course the ‘Hunderprest’ vampire that roams the ruins at the dark of night.

Melrose Abbey was founded by a colony of Cistercian monks in c.1136. Although this was one of Scotland’s wealthiest monasteries, it suffered badly in the wars that ravaged much of the Scottish Borders in the medieval period. The magnificent rebuilding of church in the late 14th and early 15th centuries was a result of damage caused by the English in 1385. The 16th century Commendator’s House is now a museum and the Chapter House contains the burial casket of a heart, thought to be that of King Robert I “The Bruce”. A considerable portion of the abbey is now in ruins. These lichen-covered ruins, among the most beautiful in Europe, are all that’s left of the ecclesiastical community.

There is an eerie story that tells how the monks of Melrose Abbey saved the town from dark specter that had been plaguing the inhabitants for some time. The Vampire of Melrose was, during his lifetime, a chaplain to a lady who lived nearby. The chaplain was fond of all manners of sin and vice. He was then nicknamed ‘Hundeprest’ meaning ‘Dog Priest’. This appellation was given to him because of his favorite sport of hunting on horseback followed by a small pack of howling hounds. In Stories of the Border Marches, John Lang says: “Other things he also loved that made not for sanctity, and when, at last, he died, his death was no more holy that his selfish, sensual life had been.”

When the chaplain died, he paid the price for his wrong doing as his soul could not find peace. His ghastly form stalked the streets at night in search of blood, terrifying the locals. The town’s people turned to the church for a solution to their plight and the monks sought to answer their pleas. They prayed, fasted and challenged the ghoul, eventually defeating it. The monster’s corpse was thrust into a fire, reducing it to ashes that were then carried by the wind over the Lammermuir Hills to the north along the Scottish borders.

Sometime after his death, it was said that he tried to enter the Melrose Abbey at the dark of night in the form of a winged bat and turning into dark vampire creature. Through prayer and rituals against the devil the monks of the abbey were able to drive him away. After denied access to the abbey, he roamed through the grounds and cottage of a woman who in times past when he was among the living was in his employ. It was reported by the near neighbors that the vampire roamed about the dwelling where he moaned and screeched at her and causing much alarm; thus she had no choice to summon an elder monk from the Abbey to investigate this disturbance and perform the rites of exorcism.

The elder monk whom was summoned brought along a fellow monk and two other men, both novices and began the investigation. They decided to watch the former priest grave when, in rustic places, the last glimmer of daylight died away. During the monk’s watch, the priest arrived in the guise of a vampire and appeared to levitate out of the deep grave, pushing gravestone asunder. The frightening phantom began to approach the trembling monk at an alarming rate. The priest retreated, as he composed himself from the shock. He then lifted up staff and smote the figure again and again. Then the elder monk retreated back to the grave. Then the grave suddenly opened with terrible sound and the ‘Hunderprest’ was swallowed in its deep pit. After the grave had opened and enveloped the priest in the warm earth, it had returned to normal as nothing had ever happened.

The elder monk knew then that he was dealing with a true vampire. Immediately he took action. He told his three companions of what occurred and to open the grave on the first light of the coming morn, which they agreed. They waited through the dark of night, only to dispatch one of the novices to bring digging tools from the abbey, which was used upon the cock of a crow. Upon the opening of the grave the vampire priest was lying in his coffin dead to the world grinning with bloody lips, the blood of his victims. Then elder monk ordered his companions to remove the body, and place it on the ground; then to burn it and scatter the ashes in the gusty winds.

Today there are those of the town that vow they can still hear a muted scream through the ruins at the dark of night of a man in a different form who in life had seemingly walked a godly life.

If You Go:

Melrose has a rich history, with architectural attractions, museums and exhibitions including the oldest continuously inhabited village in Scotland. Melrose has plenty to see and do – the town and nearby woods and fields have stunning scenery, several walks and cycle rides. The town has an extensive range of shops, as well as accommodation for visitors and excellent local services
For additional information check out the Melrose page of the Visit Scotland website.

Other sites of interest include: Nearby is the Roman fort of Trimontium, and Dryburgh Abbey. King Arthur is supposedly buried in the Eldon Hills, which overlook the town. Melrose was home to Sir Walter Scott (nearby Abbotsford), on the banks of the Tweed River. A popular attraction is Thirlestane Castle, one of Scotland’s oldest; it was built in the 13th-century and to this day it serves as a family residence.

About the author:
Norman R. Rubin is a former correspondent for the Continental News Service (USA), now retired – busy writing stories and articles for Net sites and magazines worldwide. See ‘ igoogle.com ‘ under the author’s name for a review.

Photo credits:
First Melrose Abbey photo by Niki Vogt from Pixabay
All other photos are by Norman Rubin.

Extraordinary Career of Fiction’s Most Famous Consulting Detective

Sherlock Holmes

by Norman R. Rubin

Throughout generations loyal fans have followed the career of the fictional amateur detective Sherlock Holmes, thrilled at his ability of solving criminal cases through his adept sleuthing.

“Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot”, was the cry heard in the exploits of Sherlock Holmes. With the faithful Dr. Watson at his side, he has earned his place in our lives and in the annals of literature. And through the good doctor, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who recorded their adventures we are able to follow the career of Sherlock Holmes.

It was a blessing for Sherlock Holmes fans that patients didn’t go to the office of the new eye doctor, Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of this fictional consulting detective. It was there in his Harley St. consulting room while waiting for patients to come that he turned to the possibilities of being a writer and thus Sherlock Holmes was created. No wonder the good and able Doctor Watson sometimes neglected his practice and joined Holmes in his exploits.

“It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson!’ is echoed on one’s mind when touring the much visited Sherlock Holmes Museum at the former Victorian lodging house at 221b Baker St., London where Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson lived during the Victorian era according to the stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Mr. Holmes’s armchair is by the fireside where he sat opposite Dr. Watson, comfortably seated as they discussed the case at hand. The gasogene, probably a siphon soda bottle, is on the nearby small table to splash a bit to mix with their dollop of whisky. The Persian slipper for his tobacco and the coal scuttle for his cigars are on the mantel of the fireplace. The visitor can imagine Sherlock Holmes stretched on his sofa scraping on his fiddle or reaching for the needle of cocaine bored with no cases to solve for his ingenious mind. Then in the imagination of the mind, one can see Mrs. Hudson come into the rooms with an urgent message from Scotland Yard’s best, detectives Gregson or Lestrade and we are in a hansom cab rattling through the foggy streets to the railroad stations of Waterloo or Charing Cross.

“Come Watson, come! The Game is afoot…”

Private Sherlock Holmes Walking Tour in London

If You Go:

The Sherlock Holmes Museum is run by The Sherlock Holmes International Society, a non-profit making organization.
www.sherlock-holmes.co.uk

The Sherlock Holmes Society of London founded in 1951, is open to anyone with an interest in Sherlock Holmes, Dr John H. Watson and their world during the Victorian era.
www.sherlock-holmes.org.uk

Outside Baker Street station of the London Underground, by the Marylebone Road exit, is a 9-foot-high bronze statue of the celebrated detective in his familiar deerstalker hat that will direct you to the museum at 221b Baker Street.

There are many questions about the various episodes in the Sherlock episodes that need answers, which the author Sir Conan Doyle gave no clues:
a) The housekeeper had never been implicated in being helpful in the solution of any of the crimes.
b) We would gladly hear more of Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock’s older brother and his Diogenes Club.
c) Why did the Scotland Yard detectives Gregson and Lestrade gradually fade out in the later stories?
d) And why did Billy the pageboy constantly remain a phantom?
e) And a question asked over and over again – was Dr. Watson’s wound from a Jezail bullet in his leg on in his shoulder?

OTHER SHERLOCK HOLMES MUSEUMS:

In Switzerland, there’s a Sherlock Holmes Museum at Meiringen, Bernese Oberland. It is near the Reichenbach Falls where Sherlock Holmes was locked in the death struggle with the evil Professor Moriarty. The museum has a carefully reconstructed room of his lodging at 221b Baker St. where the famous consulting detective worked and received anxious clients and Scotland Yard detectives. Imagination is the word as you look at the desk where Sherlock Holmes worked with his pipe, magnifying glass and pencil ready at hand.
Sherlock Holmes Museum: c/o Parkhotel Du Sauvage “Englischer Hof”
3860 Meiringen, Tel. +41 (0)33 971 42 21
info@sauvage.ch – www.sauvage.ch

And in Denmark there is a small museum dedicated to the famous consulting detective and his able companion Dr. Watson. The exhibition, the second largest below the one in London, contains mostly books about Sherlock Holmes – including pamphlets, booklets, comics, articles, pictures and so on. A visitor can view all sorts of memorabilia and written testimonies about Sherlock Holmes. For instance a brick from 221b Baker Street, Holmes’ violin, a copy of his Persian slipper in which he kept his tobacco, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s suitcase and a small vial of sand from the Reichenbach Falls where Holmes fought against his arch enemy Professor Moriarty, the Napoleon of Crime. You can purchase a tasteful souvenir: doll, mugs, stamps, etc. pertaining to Sherlock Holmes. If your have a moment or two to spare, you can sit on a comfortable chair, smoke if you wish and a cup of coffee or beer will be provided while you will read one of the books in their small library. Sorry, books cannot be borrowed.
www.sherlockian.net

About the author:
Norman R. Rubin is a former correspondent for the Continental News Service (USA), now retired – busy writing stories and articles for Net sites and magazines worldwide. See ‘igoogle.com ‘ under the author’s name for a review.

Image credits:
Sherlock Holmes Pub & Restaurant in London by Ewan Munro from London, UK / CC BY-SA
Sherlock Holmes drawing by Sidney Paget / Public domain
Sherlock Holmes statue by Juhanson / CC BY-SA

Haworth Haunts: In Search of the Brontë Spirit

Haworth, West Yorkshire

by M.L. Gordon

I came to Haworth, as many do, in search of ghosts. Not necessarily the kind that come rapping at your window in the night (although those would have been fine, too), but the kind that beget inspiration and satisfy that inexplicable craving to connect to those whose words we cherish. I came, in the words of Virginia Woolf, “as though [I were] to meet some long-separated friend, who might have changed in the interval—so clear an image of Haworth had [I] from print and picture.” The parsonage was a shrine; its past inhabitants, ethereal, visionary beings. I came with expectations.

I shuddered into the station at Haworth in style aboard a beautifully restored Keighley and Worth Valley Railway steam train. My guidebook said I could have taken a bus, but I sought a more authentic Brontë experience. That said, I don’t know what I expected to be greeted by upon my arrival in town (a glowering Rochester in front of Thornfield, perhaps?) but this was certainly not it. Oh, sure—I could see the muted browns and purples of the moors in the distance, and a cold drizzle gave luster to the cobblestones—but Haworth Tandoori? Had I come this far to imagine the three sisters walking arm in arm off the moors and onto the cobbled street to stop for the best curry take-away this side of Bombay before they went home to write their masterpieces? “Mmm, Anne, you’ve got to try their chicken tikka!” This I was not prepared for. Welcome to Brontë Country.

“I do not know whether pilgrimages to the shrines of famous men ought not to be condemned as sentimental journeys,” wrote Woolf in the same essay about her 1904 trip to Haworth. I have to agree. It wasn’t as though the Brontës themselves hadn’t tried to warn me. Haworth, appearing in an assortment of forms throughout their juvenilia, is a sadly ordinary place. And I soon realized the only ghosts it might manifest for me were those of my own naive imagining.

Just beyond the Black Bull Inn (which, if legend is to be believed, is where Branwell Brontë drank himself into oblivion) is the hill leading to Haworth Parsonage and the Church of St. Michael and All Angels, where much of the family is buried. Dodging raindrops, I set out to pay my respects.

The existing church was built just over 100 years ago; only the tower would have been familiar to the Brontës. It is a very ordinary church by any standard in spite of its housing such relics as a Brontë family Bible and Charlotte’s 1854 marriage certificate to Arthur Bell Nicholls, her father’s curate. A simple monument marks the location of the family vault: no statues, no ostentatious bouquets, no velvet ropes. Little distinguishes it from any other memorial, in fact, aside from the quiet clusters of tourists. Together we paced by it over again as if to give it a second chance, puzzled, perhaps, that we weren’t more moved.

I took the street past the graveyard and to the door of the parsonage, all squat and dour in greys and browns. This was the family’s home from 1820 until the Reverend Patrick Brontë’s death in 1861. Having read several biographies of the family, many things were familiar to me—the clock that Reverend Brontë wound nightly, the bedroom where Branwell supposedly set his bedclothes ablaze in a drunken stupor, the cozy clutter of pots and pans in the kitchen where Emily often studied even as she baked or helped Tabby with “pilling a potate,” as her diary fragment put it. Here were created some of the most enduring works of the English language by the three sisters who shared stories during nightly walks in the dining room. Their windows overlooked the moors and the graveyard, already full in their day, and it is not hard to imagine the genesis of these dark tales. I still expected to feel something of this as I moved from room to room, looking at the unexceptional, everyday items that had outlasted their owners.

“You can get one of them sampler patterns in the gift shop, dearie,” an old woman next to me said, patting me on the arm as we shuffled past a case of Brontë needlework.

Where was the gloom? The oppressive sense of genius and promise unfulfilled? The last traces of their otherworldly ingenuity? I sure wasn’t going to find it in the family chamber pot.

I paused for a moment in the narrow children’s study, made even smaller by Charlotte’s expansions after her sisters’ deaths. Surely this, the room in which a box of wooden soldiers had served as the origin of stories that would later evolve into Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Wuthering Heights, would bring me the epiphany I craved.

I looked out the window at the graveyard below, struck by its size. Tens of thousands of gravestones jutted out at awkward angles under a canopy of trees, and I thought of how commonplace death was in the world of the Brontës. The children had lost their mother and two older sisters before Charlotte, the next eldest, was ten. And her three younger siblings—Branwell, Emily and Anne—all died young within mere months of each other. Charlotte herself died in the early stages of pregnancy before the age of forty. Just before I had the chance to wax pensive over the tragedy of the Bronte family, a line of uniformed schoolchildren snaked wildly through the grey monuments in the graveyard below. A few brave souls climbed atop the stones and shrieked with laughter as teachers pulled them down, avoiding the eyes of indignant onlookers. No ghosts here. I sighed, and decided to head for the moors.

I had dutifully shelled out a few pounds for the parsonage tour and followed the steady stream of tourists through the house and church, but a walk on the moors in wild weather was the sort of thing you couldn’t buy tickets for. Every fiber of my romantic being hungered for transcendence. A hint of evening already lurked in the rough hollows between the hills and rain – needle-sharp and nearly horizontal – pricked at my arms. I stumbled into the wind, half believing Heathcliff might be just over the next rise. He was not. Two local girls, gossiping and giggling as they skipped up the hill in jeans and bulky, damp sweaters, were. They politely indulged me by snapping my photograph next to an obliging sheep and headed in the direction of the village. As they passed, I could see on the horizon behind them Top Withens, which is the alleged original for Wuthering Heights (though it bears little resemblance to Emily’s description in the book). It was a wonderfully stark, lonely view, one I had enjoyed in various incarnations in the Brontës’ works. But the moment had been broken so many times before that I decided to leave it there – to run into a sign that gave directions to Top Withens in Japanese a few yards down the path would have spoiled it forever. I turned back, passed the parsonage, and headed towards the train station.

By the time I reached the churchyard, the downpour had subsided into an indifferent drizzle that darkened the tombstones and the church walls. I ducked inside for a last look. This time I found myself alone. Except for them. They were there, of course, all but Anne—the mother, the father, the aunt, the little sister-saints and their literary siblings that comprised three-fourths of the so-called “dark quartet.”

But for all of their romanticized Gothic appeal, and in spite of the dismal weather, I had to conclude that the day had been disappointingly devoid of spirits. The parsonage had made the “tragic” family hopelessly and quaintly corporeal, from the banality of the family’s washstand to the display of their nightshirts and caps. Any lingering desire I had to idealize the moors had been swept away by the shrill chatter of the young girls ambling over the path to the village. Even the church, pockmarks in the tower and all (supposedly from Mr. Brontë’s gun, which folklore says he discharged daily), cheerfully refused to be haunted.

And somehow I didn’t want it to be anymore. Gazing over the family monument tucked modestly under its pillar, I couldn’t help but wonder with Lockwood in Wuthering Heights “how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.”

Private Group Haworth, Bolton Abbey and Steam Trains Day Trip from York

If You Go:

Bronte Parsonage Museum
www.bronte.org.uk
Church Street
Haworth
Keighley
West Yorkshire
England
BD22 8DR

Open daily from 10.00am – 5.30pm April to September, 11.00am – 5.00pm October to March.

Standard admission £6.00
Senior Citizens £4.00
Students £4.00
Children 5-16 years £2.50
Children under 5 free
Family Ticket £15.00 (admits 2 adults and up to 3 children age 5 – 16 years)

About the author:
M.L. Gordon is a freelance writer and English teacher living in Phoenix, Arizona. Contact info: revas_m@yahoo.com

Photo credits:
Top Withins by Dave.Dunford Dave.Dunford / Public domain
Haworth railway station by: NRTurner / CC BY-SA
Black Bull Inn, Haworth by: Tim Green from Bradford / CC BY
Bronte Parsonage Museum view from graveyard by: Davekpcv / CC BY-SA
Brontë Sisters portrait by Patrick Branwell Brontë restored Branwell Brontë / Public domain