Three days ago I visited the town of Haworth in Yorkshire, just where the moors begin. This is the town where the Bronte family lived and where Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre and Emily wrote Wuthering Heights. I spent a morning walking up to the moors -- they actually call them Wuthering Heights now -- where the ruined farm that may have inspired Emily's story lies. Top Withins, it's called. 6 1/2 mile walk round trip. How anyone could possibly even imagine farming up there is mind-boggling. Totally desolate, 3 1/2 miles from the nearest village, no road to speak of. And yet there were 3 or 4 farms up there at one time or another. Bleak moors. I took photos. Back in the village I visited the parsonage museum where the Bronte father was curate and where the women wrote their novels. The whole family was very talented.
Yesterday I visited Hill Top, home of Beatrix Potter for a number of years. It was very dark in the house (they have to protect all the art -- not hers which isn't there, but other paintings on walls) and furnishings but as a result you can hardly see things. However, it was fascinating to see that she used her own home as a model for the pictures in many of the stories. It was really cool to actually sit on the stair and figure out exactly where she was sitting when she did the drawing of Mrs. Tabitha Twitchet on the landing, worrying about Tom Kitten (The Roly-Poly Pudding)! I also enjoyed the garden, which was quite small. She left the farm to the National Trust in her will, and they have actually used the book illustrations to help re-create everything the way it was in her lifetime -- down to the perennials planted in the garden.
Yesterday I visited Hill Top, home of Beatrix Potter for a number of years. It was very dark in the house (they have to protect all the art -- not hers which isn't there, but other paintings on walls) and furnishings but as a result you can hardly see things. However, it was fascinating to see that she used her own home as a model for the pictures in many of the stories. It was really cool to actually sit on the stair and figure out exactly where she was sitting when she did the drawing of Mrs. Tabitha Twitchet on the landing, worrying about Tom Kitten (The Roly-Poly Pudding)! I also enjoyed the garden, which was quite small. She left the farm to the National Trust in her will, and they have actually used the book illustrations to help re-create everything the way it was in her lifetime -- down to the perennials planted in the garden.
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