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Skipton

A prosperous market town of about 14,000 souls located on the River Aire and the Leeds and
Liverpool Canal. The town had its beginnings in the 11th C when Robert de Romille built the first
castle there, the successor to which now stands at the top of the main street. It was a wooden
keep then but in the 12th C William Le Gros rebuilt it in stone and today Skipton Castle is still one
of the best kept and most complete mediaeval castles in England.

From the traditional cobbled market place ran passageways, or ginnets, that in mediaeval times
were narrow landholdings known as crofts or tofts. These days they are busy pedestrian streets
dotted with shops, cafes and pubs.

Ilkley

If you’ve heard the old folk song “On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at” you might want to take a look at the town
and the moor. The song, recognised now as the unofficial anthem of Yorkshire, means “On Ilkley
Moor without a hat”. Just past the town to the east is the Cow and Calf Rocks and the view from
the road between the Cow and Calf Rocks and the town is utterly splendid. It’s a 10 mile side trip
from Skipton.

Haworth.

Family home of the Bronte sisters. This Pennine village where the Bronte sisters grew up was
then a crowded industrial town, polluted, smelly and wretchedly unhygienic. Although perched on
the edge of open country, high up on the edge of Haworth Moor, the death rate was as high as
anything in London or Bradford, with 41 per cent of children failing even to reach their sixth
birthday. The average age of death was just 24.

Bronte Parsonage Museum run by the Bronte Society, was founded in 1883 and as a result is one
of the oldest literary societies in the world.

When ‘Wuthering Heights‘ was published in 1848 one reviewer wrote: ‘the reader is shocked,
disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and
vengeance, and anon come passages of powerful testimony to the supreme power of love – even
over demons in the human form.’

It was one of the most astonishing reviews in English literary history. Nothing like it had ever been
published before. Nothing has been published since.

Three sisters, daughters of a country clergyman, grew up to produce some of the most powerful
and dramatic novels in the English language.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë were the authors of some of the best-loved books in the English
language. Charlotte’s novel ‘Jane Eyre‘ (1847), Emily’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847), and Anne’s
‘The Tenant of Wildfell Hall‘ (1848) were written in this house over a hundred and fifty years ago,
yet their power still moves readers today.

To find two writers of genius in one family would be rare, but to find several writers in one
household is unique in the history of literature.

Keighley and Worth Valley Railway. Built to serve the local mill trades in the late 19th Century, the
railway is just over 4 1/2 miles long but yet still manages to pack six stations in. The KWVR runs
from Keighley to Oxenhope through beautiful Brontë country. Enjoy the sound of the engine
climbing the steep sides of the valley, belching great clouds of steam and smoke. The run is a