The Withens (reputedly Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights). Source: Wood, facing p.272. Butler Wood describes the location itself as
Withen's Height, 1,500 feet above the sea, on the eastern slope of which stands a small farmhouse which local tradition identifies as "Wuthering Heights." The situation may be that described by Emily, but the house itself bears no resemblance to that of the story; the probability being in favour of a composition suggested by High Sunderland, near Halifax and Ponden House. The latter is situated three miles from Haworth, near the road leading from that place to Colne. It is a seventeenth-century structure built by the Heatons of Ponden, and was often visited by the Brontë sisters. [317]
Ann Dinsdale explains that it was Ellen Nussey who suggested the lonely old farmhouse at "Top Withens" as the location, but agrees that there are better candidates for it, especially (as Wood suggests) High Sunderland Hall near Halifax, which Emily would have known while teaching at nearby Law Hill. As well as being in a bleak setting, this is suitably atmospheric, has an impressive entrance and various carvings, and is close to Shibden Hall, a possible candidate for Thrushcross Grange (see p. 31). But of course there is really no accounting for the muse, and the atmosphere of this more local spot may also have been one of Emily's sources of inspiration.
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Bibliography
Dinsdale, Ann. "Locations in Northern England Associated with the Brontës' Lives and Work." In The Brontës in Context, ed. Marianne Thormählen. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. 17-35.
Wood, Butler. "A Brontë Itinerary." In Charlotte Brontë, 1816-1916; a centenary memorial, prepared by the Brontë society, with a foreword by Mrs. Humphry Ward and 3 maps and 28 illustrations. Ed. Wood. New York: Dutton, 1918. 313-25. Internet Archive. Contributed by University of California Libraries. Web. 3 December 2017.
Created 3 December 2017