Mania for Brontes boosts Haworth museum (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Mania for Brontes boosts Haworth museum

8:50am Friday 3rd February 2012 in Keighley By David Knights

Renewed interest in the Bronte sisters has lead to a major boost for a popular tourist attraction.

The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth says it has already received more than 250 bookings for this year as it re-opens this week from its annual winter closure.

Last year the museum saw an eight per cent increase in visitors but museum chiefs are expecting an even better year thanks to renewed interest in the literary sisters following two major movie adaptations and a high-profile manuscript sale.

Director Andrew McCarthy said: “It’s clear that visitors will be coming to Haworth in significant numbers, from within the UK but also from overseas.

“We have some wonderful exhibitions and events planned that will make their visit here very special.”

Museum directors were left disappointed last year when they missed out on a £700,000 manuscript, a tiny edition of Young Men’s magazine, which was auctioned off. They lost out to the Musee des Lettres et Manuscrits in Paris.

However, the museum, which closes every January for maintenance work, is instead displaying another edition of the same magazine, written by Charlotte Bronte when she was 13 years old, along with other early Bronte manuscripts.

There will also be an exhibition of costumes from last year’s film adaptation of Jane Eyre, and exhibitions of work by artists Rebecca Chesney and Simon Warner.

They will focus on ‘weather’ and its historic and contemporary associations with the Brontes, and the moorland Bronte location, Top Withens.

More details from bronte.info or 01535 642323.