Ideal for an Afternoon Outing! (Haworth Village (West Yorkshire))

Member Name: blonde_girl774

Product:	Haworth Village (West Yorkshire)
Date:	22/02/08 (155 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautiful and full of character.

Disadvantages: Not suitable for pushchairs & not that much in the way of entertainment.

Quite recently my family and I were up in Yorkshire for a christening and decided to make a weekend break out of it. On our free day there we decided to take advantage of the beautiful but cold weather and do some exploring of the local villages in the area, one of which was a place called Haworth.

Haworth is a hill top village not far from the town of Bradford (8 miles) and the city of Leeds in West Yorkshire. It's situated above the Worth Valley and can be found among the Pennine moors. It took us about 30 minutes to get here from central Leeds and the journey was largely through the hills and moors.

Haworth is arguably most famous for being home to the Bronte sisters and consequently the place where they wrote the majority of their famous novels. This was one of our main reasons behind going to visit the small village due to the majority of my family being fans of the Bronte books.

The Village

The village itself is very small, incredibly beautiful and situated around one main street. This is basically a long cobbled street which is built up the side of a hill and surrounded by little cottages, shops and tea rooms. The buildings are all low rise and made of traditional grey brick and stone. There's been very little done in the way of modernising the village which really adds to its character and makes it very pretty to look at.

There are about fifteen shops on the street and these all cater to the tourist market with several second hand book shops, gift shops and a wonderful old style chemist shop selling all sorts of bath and skin care products. Several of these shops retain the appearance of how they would have looked while the Bronte sisters were alive and some even have their staff dressed in similar outfits which really adds to the atmosphere of the place.

There are also about five or six small cafes on the street which all seem to be quite reasonably priced and decorated in a very homely style. We stopped off in one of them for tea and cakes and it cost just around £11 for the four of us which seemed quite reasonable. There are also several pubs and even a restaurant on the main street which cater for the larger meals and also into the evening as well.

There are a number of pay and display car parks; we parked at one towards the top end of the main street and it cost us around £3.50 for a three hour stay which didn't seem too bad. There was also parking available on the sides of roads as well if you didn't want to pay the charges. I'm not sure how well served the village is with regards to public transport but I'm sure the local transport websites would be able to advise you better.

Once we'd finished exploring the village we decided to go for a bit of a walk and found there were numerous footpaths on offer leading out of the village depending on which direction you wanted to take. We decided to follow one of the most popular paths which allowed us to look at the Bronte Falls, the Bronte Bridge and the Bronte Stone Chair where the sisters are meant to have sat to write at various times during their lives.

The Bronte Way itself is 40 miles long although we only walked for about an hour before tiring and demanding more tea and cakes! If you do decide to walk further there are all sorts of sites to see including Top Withens which is a desolute ruin but apparently was the setting for Heathcliff's farmstead in Wuthering Heights. There's also Ponden Hall nearby which is believed to have featured in Wuthering Heights as Thrushcross Grange.

There are also several themed days throughout the year which might prove very popular with visitors including the Bronte Vintage Tractor Road Run in April and a Fun Day in Haworth Park in May. For further information you can check out the Haworth Village website which can be found at www.haworth-village.org.uk.

The Bronte Museum

This is arguably the main attraction in the area and is located in the Village Parsonage where the Brontes lived for the majority of their lives. This is about a two minute walk from the top end of the main street so is very centralised. The Parsonage has been converted into a museum and is now maintained by the Bronte Society.

The Museum is open every day all year round, except for public holidays, and opens from around 10.00am - 5.00pm depending on the time of year. Admission charges are £6 for adults, £4 for student citizens and students, £2.50 for under 16s and it's free for under 5s. A family ticket is priced at £15 and will allow access for up to 2 adults and 3 children so can save you quite a bit of money.

Once you've bought your tickets you can view the museum itself which shows much of the house as it would have been when the Brontes lived there as well as giving you access to the church and the grounds of the house. We looked round it and found it took us just over an hour for the entire experience and thoroughly enjoyed it, I'd certainly recommend this even if you're not a fan of the Bronte works.

Steam Train Trips

In the nearby village of Keighley you can board an old fashioned steam train and travel through West Yorkshire's Bronte Country from the village of Oxenhope to Haworth and on down to Oakworth then to Keighley. This has also been used on the set of The Railway Children and in numerous other TV dramas. We didn't actually venture to this attraction but it I imagine it would be lovely in the summer months.

My Opinion

I really enjoyed my visit to Haworth and would recommend it to anyone wanting to spend a couple of hours in the fresh air in the Yorkshire area. If you've got small children it might not be ideal as the Bronte Museum is arguably the biggest attraction in the area and the main street is situated on quite a steep, cobbled hill which wouldn't be suitable for push chairs really.

What really struck me about the area was the character and the charm of the village. It was so natural and unspoilt by any modern alterations or buildings that I found it so serene just to look at. There wasn't a modern supermarket in site and the village itself was so peaceful with the shops adding such an ambience to the area that it was hard not to feel myself relaxing as I walked around.

With all this in mind I would have to say that it's probably not somewhere I'd choose to go back to in the near future as once you've spent a couple of hours there you'll easily have seen everything there is to see. There are plenty of other villages in the area that are similar in character and size which I'll certainly be making an effort to visit this year after such an enjoyable time in Haworth.

Thanks for reading.

Summary: The small village of Haworth in West Yorkshire.