In the footsteps of the Brontës with Joanne Wilcock

On Saturday 12 October, the Brussels Brontë Group enjoyed a morning’s immersion in Brontë-related places, including some fabulous northern English scenery. The first of the day’s two talks explored landscapes and buildings associated with the Brontës, the other focused on the symbolic significance of some of the landscapes in the sisters’ novels. 

First up was a presentation by Joanne Wilcock, In the Footsteps of the Brontës in the North of England.

Joanne is a blogger and Brontë enthusiast who has become an expert on Brontë-related places. She has largely accomplished her self-imposed task of visiting all of them from her home in Lancashire an hour’s drive from Haworth. She has written about them in fascinating detail and a wealth of photos in her blog My Travels with the Brontës and another blog that recounts her trip along Charlotte Brontë’s honeymoon route in Ireland. She has given talks in Ireland at the Brontë festivals recently started up in Banagher, the home town of Charlotte Brontë’s husband, Arthur Nicholls, and in Kilkee, which was on the couple’s honeymoon route. Judging from our group’s reception of Joanne’s talk, I’m sure she will continue to be in demand as a speaker. 

Joanne kept us spellbound with a feast of images and a lively commentary which delivered much biographical detail on all four Brontë siblings, their father Patrick and mother Maria Branwell. Of course there wasn’t time to cover every single major place visited or lived in by the Brontës in the north of England. But Joanne managed to cover a lot of ground, starting with Woodhouse Grove School, the place where Patrick Brontë, of the parish of Drumballyroney in Ireland, met and wooed Maria Branwell, who was from Penzance. 

Joanne Wilcock in the footsteps of the Brontës

We also learned much about the two schools attended by the Brontë sisters, Cowan Bridge and Roe Head. The former, at which the two eldest siblings Maria and Elizabeth contracted the illness that killed them, inspired the dire institution attended by the young Jane Eyre. Joanne provided pictures and information on places visited by the Brontës during their time at Cowan Bridge that were probably less familiar to our members. Thus, we saw the picturesque spot in Morecambe Bay where sick pupils were sent to recuperate, and the church which inspired Brocklebridge Church, to which Jane Eyre and her schoolfellows are forced to walk in the freezing cold to attend both the morning and afternoon services. 

Branwell, the Brontë brother, was not forgotten. We accompanied him to Broughton-in-Furness in Cumbria, where he secured a job as tutor to two young boys in which he was urged to pay “the strictest attention to grammar”, and were treated to some of the stunning views he would have seen on his walks before he was dismissed for reasons not altogether clear. Joanne filled us in on recent local history research into the possibility that he might have fathered a child with a local woman (“Was Branwell a grandad?”). 

North Lees Hall, Hathersage

A highlight of our virtual Brontë trip with Joanne was a visit to Hathersage in Derbyshire. Charlotte’s visit there with Ellen Nussey, whose brother Henry was vicar there for a time, provided her with some of the inspiration for Jane Eyre. North Lees Hall in Hathersage is believed to be the house or one of the houses that provided elements of Mr Rochester’s Thornfield Hall. 

While she was in Belgium, Joanne took the opportunity to revisit Brontë places in Brussels and also to tick off a location that was still on her to-do list: Waterloo, visited by Patrick Brontë when he escorted his daughters to Belgium. Unlike Charlotte and Emily, who as far as we know never got there, Joanne managed to fit in both the battlefield museum and the Wellington museum in Waterloo before returning to her native Lancashire. We trust she enjoyed her time here and look forward to accompanying her virtually on her future excursions in the footsteps of the Brontë family. 

 Helen MacEwan

Committee members and speakers at 12 October talks. From left to right: Pauline Ghyselen, Helen MacEwan, Joanne Wilcock, Sara Zadrozny and Jones Hayden.