The Charlotte Stone

Brontë200
The past five years have been a bonanza for admirers of Haworth’s Brontë family with the Brontë200 five-year programme of bicentenaries: the Reverend Patrick Brontë’s invitation to become Haworth’s leading minister in 1819 and the births of Charlotte, Emily, Branwell and Anne (1816, 1817, 1818 and 1820.) As part of the celebrations, author Michael Stewart has devised a series of walks to visit monumental stones positioned in key places across Brontëland and Sally and I recently went on a pilgrimage to find The Charlotte Stone.

bog-burst of pain, fame, love, unluck.
The walk begins in Thornton near the remains of the Bell Chapel where Patrick was curate from 1815 to 1820. Over the road, the current St James’ Church contains an interesting exhibition about the Brontës. You ascend on tracks that pass Thornton Hall, probably the inspiration for Mr Rochester’s house in Jane Eyre. The wild and surprising views above Thornton carry you along high ridges that then descend to the Great Northern Railway trail where you cross the awesome 20-arch Thornton viaduct. The walk ends (inevitably) at the Brontë birthplace, now Emily’s café, and the site of The Charlotte Stone with a poem by Carol Ann Duffy. Officially “Easy,” I would describe the walk as “Strenuous” and we took all day, but that’s cos we included a lengthy picnic stop (or two) with hot bevarages and time to take in the Yorkshire views. 

Charlotte by Carol Ann Duffy
Walking the parlour, round round round the table,
miles; dead sisters stragglers till ghosts; retired wretch,
runty, pale, plain C.Brontë; mouth skewed, tooth-rot.
You see you have prayed to stone; unheard, thwarted.
But would yank your heart through your frock,
fling it as a hawk over the moors, flaysome.
So the tiny handwriting of your mind as you pace.
So not female not male like the wind’s voice.
The vice of this place clamps you; daughter; father
who will not see thee wed, traipsing your cold circles
between needlework, bed, sleep’s double-lock.
Mother and siblings, vile knot under the flagstones, biding.
But the prose seethes, will not let you be, be thus;
bog-burst of pain, fame, love, unluck. True; enough.
So your still doll-steps in the dollshouse parsonage.
So your writer’s hand the hand of a god rending the roof.