Vesna Armstrong Photography

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...

  Oakwell Hall at nearby Birstall never fails to regale me with new images. Here are some inspired b&w  interior shots and still life I found in the beautiful 17th century home, now a museum, last week.  

  "I'm so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers." ~ L. M. Montgomery ~

  “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 ~

  “Fall, leaves, fall; die, flowers, away; Lengthen night and shorten day; Every leaf speaks bliss to me Fluttering from the autumn tree. I shall smile when wreaths of snow Blossom where the rose should grow; I shall sing when night’s decay Ushers in a drearier day.” ~ Emily Brontë ~

  "There is a spot 'mid barren hills Where winter howls and driving rain But if the dreary tempest chills There is a light that warms again The house is old, the trees are bare And moonless bends the misty dome But what on earth is half so dear -  So longed for as the hearth of home? The mute bird sitting on the stone, The dank moss dripping from the wall, the garden-walk with weeds o'ergrown I love them - how I love them all!"  ~ Emily Brontë, "A Little While" ~                                   

  I visit Scarborough at least once a year and certainly every summer. I personally prefer inland countryside to the seaside, but in summer months I love to be near the sea for a change. Scarborough, a popular resort town on England's North Sea coast holds a lovely traditional and historic charm which is right up my street; and there is also a very special reason why I love visiting this place: Anne Brontë (1820-1849), the youngest of the three Victorian literary sisters died and was buried here. As a big Brontëphile, it means much to me to come and pay homage to Anne, who is the only member of the Brontë family not buried in Haworth, where they lived most of their life.  Anne became very fond of Scarborough through the holidays she spent here with the family for whom she worked as governess. When she got struck down by tuberculosis Anne came here with her sister Charlotte hoping the sea air would help her recuperate, but tragically she died just a few days into her stay, aged...