Volunteers are turning the clock back at the Bront Parsonage museum to transform the garden into the plant display the literary family would have known.

And the first variety of flowers to make an appearance, and likely to have been recognised by Emily Bront, is a type of sweet pea.

Parsonage guardians in Haworth hope shoots will be showing through the soil by this weekend, when the first plant fair is held in the garden and in the schoolroom opposite.

"The variety is as near as we could get to the one Charlotte wrote about in a letter," said Alan Bentley, parsonage manager. "The plants that the Bront's grew had to be hardy because of the location.

"We are trying to bring back the plants that they would have seen, so we want nothing newer than 1860. We know the layout of the garden, and the path is authentic and the beds are laid out reasonably the same, but we have no description of the garden."

The Bronts were fond of flowers and mentioned them in their books, and Charlotte, who wrote Jane Eyre, corresponded with her friend Ellen Nussey in March 1844, seeking advice on behalf of Emily.

The plant fair will be held between 10am and 4pm on Sunday and will include specialist collections of astillbus, crocosmias, alpines, rock garden plants, ferns and shrubs and unusual hardy perennials.