Journal · Literary Brontë
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We run the Brontë Country Day Trip year-round. In October, it is something different.
The moors above Haworth in October are the moors that Emily Brontë described. The heather has finished blooming — the purple is gone, replaced by the dark bronze and rust of dying bracken and heather stems. The light is lower and softer. The sky above the Pennine watershed is larger and darker than summer. The wind has a different quality — not the warmth of August but the first real edge of autumn, coming off the high ground from the north-west.
This is the atmospheric register of Wuthering Heights. It is available, more or less exactly, in October.
There is no good time of year to visit a churchyard. There are some times that are better than others. The Haworth churchyard in October — with the leaves mostly down from the trees that survive on the exposed hillside, the graves visible through the bare branches, the light falling at the angle that October produces — is one of the most effective settings for thinking about what this family was and what happened to them.
Charlotte Brontë is buried beneath the nave floor. Emily is buried in the family vault. Anne is in Scarborough. Patrick Brontë lived for another six years after Anne's death, in the parsonage beside the graves of his children.
The drive across the moor above Haworth in October is different from the same crossing in July. The road is quieter, the summer growth has died back, and the moor is bare and visible on both sides. The views are longer in some weathers and shorter in others; October cloud can sit on the moor ridge and reduce visibility to fifty metres, which is its own kind of experience from the vehicle.
The curlew that breed on the high moor have gone south for the winter. But the short-eared owls that hunt the moorland edge in winter begin to appear in October, and golden plover flocks build on the higher ground.
The return route from Haworth in the late afternoon passes through the southern Yorkshire Dales. In October, the drive through the Dales in evening light — the limestone walls, the bare limestone pavements on the higher ground, the villages in their gritstone and their shelter — is worth having on its own terms.
We arrive back in Windermere at approximately 6:30pm. Most guests have something to eat and then reflect, privately, on what they have taken in.
The Brontë Country Day Trip runs year-round. October is a particularly good month. Book here.