Birthplace of Dreams: The First Home of the Brontës

Patrick Brontë was to say later in his life ‘Thornton, my happiest years.’ Who would have thought that this humble little terraced property on the outskirts of Bradford in the village of Thornton was to be the birthplace of incredible literary genius? For in this house three girls were born early in the nineteenth century whose collective ability to weave magic with words created novels that are loved, discussed and read worldwide over 175 years after publication. The Brontë sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, defied a male-dominated age, where as women it was almost unthinkable to write and publish books, but publish they did, using the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Jane Eyre (1846), Wuthering Heights (1847) and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) are the most widely known. It is 205 years since the family vacated the house when Patrick Brontë took his family to Haworth in April 1820 upon his appointment as the perpetual curate of St Michael and All Angels’ Church. Since that time the house has remained, awaiting patiently, almost in the shadows, the day it would live and breathe again, with the Brontë connection being quite rightly recognised and embraced. In many ways the purchase of the property by the Brontë Birthplace Community Benefit Society is the final piece of the jigsaw and how perfect that it coincides with Bradford’s City of Culture status in 2025. In this image-driven book we take a journey of literary excellence with the focus on the house, but we also travel locally to walk in the footsteps of these remarkable young women, touching on locations pertinent to their odyssey.