About half a mile long, going steady up, filled with lovely cottages, shops and cafés – the lively Main Street in Haworth invites you to take a little stroll!
And is also the perfect backdrop for a little photoshoot with actor Ciaron Davis, who was incorporating his inner Heathcliff.
Haworth became famous as the village where the Bronte sisters wrote their classic novels, often inspired by the surrounding moors. But at the time of the Bronte sisters Haworth and most of Yorkshire wasn´t that picturesque village we see today…
Haworth in the mid 1800’s was not the romantic village that one thinks of when reading all those books written by the Bronte sisters, but in reality was quite a grim place to live and had many social problems because of it’s poor water supply and virtual lack of sanitation. (Bancrofts from Yorkshire)
Yorkshire was filled with mills and factories and most of the workers lived in very poor conditions.
Pastor Patrick Bronte, the father of the Bronte sisters, petitioned for clean water and better healthcare. Luckily we don´t have to worry about this today. The BBC movie “To walk invisible” shows how much darker Haworth probably looked during the times of the Bronte and was shoot in and around Haworth.
Today we can enjoy a lovely variety of shops and coffee houses along the main street leading up to the church and the parsonage.
This archway was called “Gauger’s Croft” –
“A Gauger is an old name given to the exciseman whose job it was to put down illicit distillation and smuggling.” (Haworth Village)
This area was probably used to store wine and spirits for the surrounding crofts.
The Cabinet of Curiosities – this was my favourite shop, filled with lovely & funny little things and I just had to go in every time I passed by. During the time of the Brontë family, this used to be the druggist house where Branwell Brontë bought his Laudanum, an opiate.
Haworth has hosted many movies and tv shows in the last centuries, like “The Railway Children”, “Yanks”, “Wild Child” and “To walk invisible”, the BBC movie about the Brontë sisters.
The old schoolhouse on the right and the parsonage on the left.
