Juxtabook

Save The Red House Gomersall: Museum of writer, and friend of Charlotte Bronte, Mary Taylor's home

I've blogged before about the less well known Bronte pilgrimage destination The Red House, Gomersall. Though less famous than the Haworth Parsonage it is a beautiful house with a wonderful museum. As well as the Bronte connection Mary Taylor (whose home it was) is an interesting writer and early feminist in her own right.

 

Kirkless Council currently own and run The Red House and, like most councils, they need to make savings but it will be a terrible loss to the literary heritage of Yorkshire if this museum is allowed to close.

You can view The Red House's own site here and an article in The Guardian here and there is a petition to save it here.

Mary on the Houses of Parliament - a guest post by Roberta Wedge

Roberta Wedge has been campaigning for sometime to get the first memorial to Mary Wollstonecraft erected. As a teenage fan of Mary I think this is a wonderful idea. MW's views on women and on education formed the basis for some of my earliest grown-up thinking.

Roberta explains how the campaign is currently going:

There is so much going on that I hardly know where to start. Mary Wollstonecraft will be beamed across the Thames onto the Houses of Parliament in the early dusk of November 16. The rumour that I quashed about the abseiling lesbians and the whisky chocolate cake is as nothing to the glorious truth: a gigantic projection will wow the crowds from 4-6pm on Wednesday, and will pop up all over the media in the days to come. This is the kick-off to serious fundraising for the Mary on the Green campaign I wrote of last month.

Another piece of good news is that the NatWest CommunityForce scheme has, as a result of your support, awarded £6275 to the campaign to raise a memorial to Our Lady. That is a serious kick-start.

My address to the Fawcett Society last week went well, and next week will be adapted for the Newington Green Action Group's annual Friends Evening. All welcome! As indeed all are welcome to the Girlie Show, a Mary on the Green fundraiser to be held at Snooty Fox, a pub in Newington Green. Somehow I think the overlap between the two events will be ... choice. Possibly only me. That's OK.

If you recognise Mary Wollstonecraft's contribution to the life you lead now, I invite you to consider whether and how you might wish to get involved in the campaign to create a sculpture in her honour.  Remember, there is no substantial memorial to her, anywhere in the world.  (There is a lecture, a lecture hall, a hidden house, and several plaques, but nothing really big and tangible.) Your contributions would be valuable. If you can, please donate. Aside from money, there is much else to do: we need lots of people to spread the word, for example. (On Twitter, look out for and use the hashtag #marybigben.)  If you have other ideas of how you might help, please let me know, in the comments or by email.

You can read Roberta's blog here and follow her on twitter here.

More on Bronte Places

Whilst driving to The Red House at Gomersall  I saw the word Bronte on a plaque (not unusual round here but this looked authentic) and fortunately Mr J was able to pull in. We ran back and found another lovely house:

 

This is Clough House, Halifax Road, Hightown, Liversedge and the plaque reads:

 

 

The plaque is above the tall doorcase. Fortuantely Mr J is tall enough to have got us a reasonable picture. On a cramped pavement next to a busy road, with no chance of standing back, my 5'6" vantage point had no chance of a decent shot.

Mary Taylor and The Red House

I mentioned a while ago that I received a copy of Miss Miles: A Tale of Yorkshire Life 60 Years Ago by Mary Taylor, friend of Charlotte Bronte, for Christmas. Inspired by the introduction (which is as far as I have got yet) I pestered Mr J for a day out in Gomersal where Mary Taylor's lovely family home is open to the public.

 

Mary, together with Ellen Nussey was a life long friend of Charlotte's from her school days in Mirfield. Whilst Ellen nursed Charlotte's posthumous reputation the feistier Mary had no time for the Bronte industry. The museum is a testament to a striking friendship between Mary and Charlotte, two piercingly intelligent women, as well as tribute to Mary's long life, lived unconventionally, and her remarkable feminist writing.

The Red House is a charming little museum. A pretty house in a pretty garden with a nice balance between rooms recreated as they would have been when the family was there, and extensive exhibition space both in upstairs rooms of the house and in an adjacent barn. There are some lovely exhibits and a great game with magnetic counters showing the choices in a middle class girl's life and how fate could raise you up or leave you destitute at a stroke.

Unbelievably, there is no charge to enter the house, garden, or any of the exhibitions, and there is a free car park. If you are interested in Charlotte Bronte rather than Mary then the house is notable for being the original of 'Briarmains' in 'Shirley'. Whether your interest is in the Brontes, women's history and early feminism, Mary Taylor, or the Luddites and mills of the West Riding then The Red House at Gomersal is well worth a visit.

The local church is not open to visitors but we did find Mary Taylor's grave in the church yard.

 
The additional plaque at the bottom commemorates Mary's sister Martha Taylor whose death in Brussels so affected Charlotte.

If you are interested Mary Taylor then her main works are:

Miss Miles: A Tale of Yorkshire Life 60 Years Ago

Swiss Notes By Five Ladies, Lancaster: Peter A. Marshall, 2003 [Incorporating The Identification of the Five Ladies]

The First Duty of Women London: Emily Faithful, 1870

and the main biographical source is:

More Precious Than Rubies: Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Bronte, Strong Minded Woman by Joan Bellamy. Hull: Highgate of Beverley, 2002 (also available in the shop at The Red House).

There is also a rather lovely small press miniature book:

Charlotte Bronte and Mary Taylor: Early Feminists by Suzanne Smith Pruchnicki. Illinois, The Brontë Press, 1999

 

Very cute, I think.

At the time of writing I have a very nice signed copy of this in stock (drop me an email if you are interested) though there are two or three others available via online sellers in the US.

And finally on the subject of Shirley there is a new review of Shirley on Shelf Love.

John Clare and Helpston

On our way down to Suffolk from Yorkshire we stayed for a few days in Rutland and from there we had a leisurely drive with time to take in the village of Helpston, home to John Clare (1793-1864), the "Northamptonshire peasant poet". We had been before on our way home from an ibooknet meeting held at Peakirk Books but failed to have the camera with us last time. So here we are, a quick look at Helpston:

Poor old Clare was utterly in love with his locality but suffered mental problems, the trauma of which was only added to when he was sent away to an asylum, separating him from the landscape he loved.

If you are interested in John Clare you can do no better than John Clare by Himself edited by Eric Robinson and David Powell and illustrated with wood engravings by John Lawrence. There is also a recent biography John Clare by Jonathan Bate.

For out of print items on John Clare, Peakirk Books are no longer in Peakirk, but they still operate a mail order service and have a good range of John Clare items in stock.

There is also a John Clare society.

Edited to add: Karen at Cornflower also recommends a novel treatment of Clare, in both senses of the word. The Poet's Wife by Judith Allnatt is a fictionalised verison of the relationship between Clare and his wife Patty. You can read Karen's review here. I note that The Poet's Wife has 11 5 star reviews on Amazon; it is rare to see no dissent amongst Amazon readers! Another title for my to-be-acquired list then.

Owen Sheers and A Poet's Guide to Britain

Criminally tucked away on BBC Four is a wonderful programme on poetry and landscape, A Poet's Guide to Britain. There have been two episodes so far, the first on William Wordsworth and the second on Sylvia Plath, and both are available to watch (if you're in the UK) from the Beeb.

Both episodes so far have followed a similar format: the poet Owen Sheers considers the biographical background and literary context to a landscape poem. The two poems he has picked so far, and his handling of them, have been imaginatively offbeat: a poem on London by Wordsworth, 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802', and a poem on Yorkshire moorland by Sylvia Plath, 'Wuthering Heights'. We expect Lakeland poems from one and gothic psychology from the other and so what Sheers gives us is a distinctive slant, a new way of looking, at two much worked-over lives and over-read poems. Both episodes had a definite thesis and this was illuminated by discussion with an established poet (Simon Armitage on Wordsworth and Jo Shapcott on Plath) and with an up and coming poet (Adam O'Riordan on Wordsworth and Claire Pollard on Plath) providing a neat thirty minute bite of really worthwhile, entertaining literary criticism. All the appearing poets read relevant poems of their own too which firmly locates 'Composed upon Westminster Bridge' and 'Wuthering Heights' in a contemporary context.

Being TV it went beyond being beautifully shot, which it is, to having rather too much over-visualised padding including some very annoying words flying across the screen when Plath's poems were read, some times utilizing archive of Sylvia Plath's voice which really does make the hairs stand up on your neck. Plath's distinct poetic voice and strong Bostonian actual voice do not need subtitles. But amongst the annoying waffle were some rare - for modern TV - genuine moments of intellectual engagement when our poet presenter lifted himself from housewives' choice (think a cross between Ted Hughes and Ben Fogle) and looked the camera in the eye and told us what he really thought without embellishment or sound bite or visual trickery and these critical nuggets lifted A Poet's Guide to Britain to way above the ordinary about-a-poet programme. What we get really is a poet's guide to British literary landscape.

Both programmes so far in the series pull off the challenge of being accessible without being patronising. If you love these poets I am sure you will get something from viewing these episodes, and if you have always wondered what the fuss was about, then this is a truly watchable place to start. And as a last inducement the Plath programme is great for those interested in the Brontes who have not had the chance to visit Haworth or the Pennine moors. I look forward to the remaining four in the series.

Lancashire Witch Country

This being the right time of year for it we took the four year old to Barley and then Newchurch-in-Pendle, Lancashire. I lived as a teenager in the vicinity of Pendle Hill and like all locals soon became very familiar with the tale of the Lancashire Witches. Pendle Hill, a dark distinctive shape, looms out of the Pennine hillscape and seems a fitting place for the stories of one of the largest single groups of witches tried and executed in England.

 

Newchurch, as well as being the home of one of the families of witches involved in the trials, has a church with an 'eye of God' marked in the stone of the tower. Fittingly for the nature of the area it is supposed to keep watch for evil. Newchurch is picturesque, tiny, and generally only visited by local tourists: those like us with roots in the area on a trip out. Its tiny streets house one little cafe/shop which does a nice line in toy witches, pumpkin soup and mock-ups of the most famous historical residents:

From the start the whole sorry tale was well documented. The whole trial was detailed in The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster by Thomas Potts which you do come across from time to time secondhand in various facsimile editions.

And after the facts came the fiction. There are many versions but the best known novels on the subject are the Victorian The Lancashire Witches by William Harrison Ainsworth and more recently Mist Over Pendle by Robert Neill.

There was a brief item on the BBC news today about a petition for the pardoning of witches, and whilst I am not sure that we can rewrite history after such a long time, these petitions do at least recognsise the human cost of these witch trials where lives were lost to hanging on a charge we no longer recognise. It is quite possible that some of the individuals involved were up to no good and some it appears believed in their own guilt, though clearly anyone's claim to be a witch in the sense of being able to cause death by cursing is bound to be viewed my most of us as very unlikely now. A few days ago Kirsty at Other Stories had a very good piece about Jack the Ripper and suggests that in the True Crime fetish that follows the story of the Whitechapel murders we lose sight of the reality of his victims. She notes:

"I suppose it sort of comes back to what I was talking about the other day. People's love and thirst for horror and scariness, and the unknown and unknowable brutal killer falls right into that. Lots of people are fascinated with serial killers (I used to work in a bookshop where the biggest-selling section was True Crime) but the Whitechapel Murders have almost become mythologised now. The humanity of the victims has been completely ignored in the face of books, graphic novels, and movies."

And I have to say that her words were with me when I took that photo of the witches outside the cafe. I did not forgot the women (and two men) who lost their lives in the seventeenth century here, but I do think that what they were and what they did (and indeed what they had done to them) has become lost both the mists of time and the mish-mash of traditions we have over All Hallows Eve. In the end I think, as I watched my daughter enjoy scaring herself by trying to pluck the courage to touch one of the figures, that we need Hallowe'en as part of growing up and that the real people who are the Lancashire Witches have become part of that process. The mock witches are clearly inhuman, the real witches were not and it is still good I think to remember that what happened was a tragedy for those involved. 

The  Names  of  the
Witches committed to the
Castle of Lancaster.

Elizabeth Sowtherns alias Old Demdike Who dyed before 
  shee came to her tryall.

Anne Whittle, alias Chattox.
Elizabeth Device, Daughter of old Demdike.
James Device, Sonne of Elizabeth Device.
Anne Readfearne, Daughter of Anne Chattox.
Alice Nutter.
Katherine Hewytte.
John Bulcocke.
Jane Bulcocke.
Alizon Device, Daughter of Elizabeth Device.
Isabell Robey.
Magaret Pearson.

Hanged at Lancaster Moor on 20 August 1612.

*Edited to add that Geranium Cat has some notes on Witchfire at Lammas by Robert Neill over at Geranium Cat's Bookshelf.

...the road to Haworth

In a town one does not look for vivid colouring; what there may be of this is furnished by the wares in the shops, not by foliage or atmospheric effects; but in the country some brilliance and vividness seems to be instinctively expected, and there is consequently a slight feeling of disappointment at the grey neutral tint of every object near or far off, on the way from Keighley to Haworth. The distance is about four miles; and as I have said, what with villas, great worsted factories,

rows of workman's houses,

with here and there an old-fashioned farm-house and outbuildings, it can hardly be called country any part of the way.

...Right before the traveller on this road rises Haworth village; he can see it for two miles before he arrives,

for it is situated on the side of a pretty steep hill, with a background of dun and purple moors, rising and sweeping away yet higher than the church, which is built at the summit of the long narrow street.

... the ascent through the village begins

...The old stone houses are high compared with the width of the street,

...which makes an abrupt turn before reaching the more level ground at the head of the village, so that the steep aspect of the place in one part, is almost like that of a wall. But this surmounted, the church lies a little off the main road on the left;

...hundred yards, or so, and the driver relaxes his care, and the horse breathes more easily, as they pass into the quiet little by street that leads to Haworth Parsonage.

...The parsonage stands at right angles to the road, facing down upon the church; so that, in fact, parsonage, church and belfried school house, form three sides of an irregular oblong, of which the fourth is open to fields and moors. The area of this oblong is filled up with by a crowded church yard...

Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Chapter 1.