ACTRESS and former model Lily Cole is among high-profile figures enlisted to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Emily Bronte’s birth.

Social entrepreneur Lily will be joined for the Haworth-centred anniversary by folk group The Unthanks, poet Patience Agbabi and artist Kate Whiteford.

They will all play a part in 12 months of activities organised by the Bronte Society and its Bronte Parsonage Museum to mark the bicentenary of the birth of the Wuthering Heights author.

The programme of special events is part of the five-year Bronte 200 Festival and follows years devoted to the bicentennials of Charlotte and Branwell Bronte in 2016 and 2017.

Lily will follow in the footsteps of novelist Tracy Chevalier and poet Simon Armitage to become creative partner at the Bronte Parsonage Museum.

In a new partnership with the Foundling Museum, Lily will explore the connections between the origins of Emily’s anti-hero Heathcliff and the real foundlings of 1840s London.

She will also consider gender politics and women’s rights, in the year which marks 100 years since women got the vote.

Lily said: “Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite books and I have long been fascinated by its enigmatic writer, Emily Bronte. The fact that Emily had to change her name – to Ellis Bell – in order to publish the novel intrigues and inspires me.

“I am excited and honoured to be given the opportunity to work on a project to commemorate the legacy of one of England’s most important, and mysterious, writers.”

Poet and performer Patience Agbabi, will be the Haworth museum’s Writer in Residence, land artist Kate Whiteford will explore Emily’s connection to the Yorkshire landscape through her pet hawk

Nero, and award-winning band The Unthanks will compose and perform a song cycle based on Emily’s

poems.

Jenna Holmes, who leads the contemporary arts programme at the Bronte Parsonage Museum, said: “We know very little about Emily, but from the work she left behind, we know that she was a talented writer, artist and musician.

“We wanted to celebrate her immense creativity by commissioning exciting new work from artists who we knew would do her legacy justice.”

Other celebrations include a new exhibition, Making Thunder Roar: Emily Bronte, which will open on Thursday, February 1, when the Bronte Parsonage Museum reopens after its winter break.

Visit bronte.org.uk or 01535 642323 for further details of events at the museum.