Closure threat for Bronte-link house (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Expert fears for museum as council looks at budget savings

8:10am Saturday 28th January 2012 in Spen By Sally Clifford

The director of the Bronte Parsonage in Haworth has condemned proposals to close a popular museum with strong connections to the famous literary family.

The future of Red House Museum, Gomersal, will be discussed at Kirklees Council’s Cabinet meeting on February 7 as part of budget talks.

But parsonage director Andrew McCarthy said: “We appreciate the challenges faced by local authorities in terms of balancing the budgets at the moment but it does seem a pretty drastic step that can be made in haste and repented at leisure.”

The Edwardian mansion belonged to mill-owner Joshua Taylor whose novelist daughter, Mary, was a close friend of Charlotte Bronte.

It is said ‘Briarmains’ – the house Charlotte wrote about in her second novel, Shirley – was based on Red House and some of the characters were thought to have been inspired by the Taylor family.

Mr McCarthy said: “The Taylor family as merchants, bankers and mill-owners did a huge amount to shape that part of the West Riding and they are a great part of the heritage of the area and there is this very strong link with the Brontes, particularly Charlotte.

“She stayed there on many occasions in the 1830s as a guest of her close friends Mary and Martha Taylor.

“There are very few buildings which combine Bronte history and Bronte fiction in the way Red House does. It would be a huge loss.”