Vesna Armstrong Photography

  "When winter winds are piercing chill, And through the hawthorn blows the gale,  With solemn feet I tread the hill, That overbrows the lonely vale. O'er the bare upland, and away  Through the long reach of desert woods, The embracing sunbeams chastely play, And gladden these deep solitudes." -"Woods in Winter", Henry Wadsworth Longfellow- Haworth - Brontë Country Charlotte Brontë's christening bonnet. It is on display at the Brontë Parsonage Museum for the first time as part of this year's exhibition entitled "The Brontës Web of Childhood". Yorkshire Sculpture Park

  "Mr. Rochester, if ever I did a good deed in my life - if ever I thought a good thought - if ever I prayed a sincere and blameless prayer - if ever I wished a righteous wish - I am rewarded now. To be your wife is , for me, to be as happy as I can be on earth."  Charlotte Brontë, "Jane Eyre" The following photos I took on a beautifully atmospheric, ethereal walk around Wycoller, Brontë Country with my colleagues from the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The ruins of Wycoller Hall, Lancashire. The hall was the inspiration for Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Brontë's novel "Jane Eyre", Rochester's second home where he moves after his first home Thornfield Hall is burnt down, and where he is reunited with Jane.

  “I remembered that the real world was wide, and that a varied field of hopes and fears, of sensations and excitements, awaited those who had the courage to go forth into it's expanse, to seek real knowledge of life amidst it's perils.” ―  Charlotte Brontë, " Jane Eyre "  Happy Birthday To A Perpetual Muse! 

  "It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful." ~ Oscar Wilde ~

Oakwell Hall is one of the nearest Brontë related places to my home. It is also one of my favourite ones due to the fact there is so much to enjoy around it; the fascinating historic manor house, beautiful gardens and over a 100 acres of country park, all coupled with the fact that Charlotte Brontë also enjoyed this place in her life time.  Oakwell Hall was built in the 16th century by the Batt family, and today it is a living museum featuring a home as it was to the Batt family at the end of the 17th century. In the 19th century the Hall used to be a boarding school for girls run by various families. Charlotte Brontë, the celebrated Victorian novelist, knew one of the Cockill girls who lived at the Hall from 1830 - 1865 and whose mother ran it as a girls' boarding school. Charlotte's best friend Ellen Nussey lived in the same village, Birstall, and it is believed that the two friends visited the Hall together in 1830s.  Charlotte was so inspired by Oakwell Hall that she featu...

  “The Autumn day its course has run – the Autumn evening falls, Already risen the Autumn moon gleams quiet on these walls, And Twilight to my lonely house a silent guest is come, In mask of gloom through every room she passes dusk and dumb. Her veil is spread, her shadow shed o’er stair and chamber void, And now I feel her presence steal even to my lone fireside, Sit silent Nun – sit there and be, Comrade and Confidant to me.” ~ Charlotte Brontë ~

  "Spring drew on....and greenness grew over those brown beds, which, freshening daily, suggested the thought  that hope traversed them at night and left each morning brighter traces of her steps."   ~ Charlotte Brontë, "Jane Eyre" ~ Etsy Shop