The Brontës' Yorkshire: Haworth and the Moors

In 1820 Patrick Brontë became incumbent of St Michael and All Angels' Church in Haworth and arrived at this parsonage with his wife and six children. It stayed the family home for the rest of their lives, and it is where the sisters wrote their famous novels. Jane Eyre was accepted and published on 19 October 1847; Wuthering Heights followed in December, in a set with Agnes Grey. Today the house is the Brontë Parsonage Museum, kept by the Brontë Society.

Visitor guidance: Open as the Brontë Parsonage Museum; check current opening times before you go.

In 1824 the four eldest sisters left Haworth for the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge, near Kirkby Lonsdale. Maria and Elizabeth died after experiencing harsh privations there. Charlotte later described the abuses and the typhus epidemic, in which seven pupils died, in Jane Eyre, and Helen Burns, who dies of consumption in Jane's arms, is based closely on Maria. A plaque marks the former school building, which partially survives.

Location precision: The novel calls the school Lowood and never names Cowan Bridge; the pin marks the village where the real school stood.

Visitor guidance: The former school building partly survives in the village; look for the commemorative plaque.

Ponden Hall, a farmhouse near Stanbury, is reputedly the model for Thrushcross Grange, the Lintons' home. In the novel Heathcliff and Catherine spy on the Lintons there, and Lockwood is the Grange's new tenant. Emily was a frequent visitor, and in the early 19th century the hall held reputedly the largest private library in Yorkshire, which the Brontë children used. The match is traditional only: the building does not fit the novel's description of the Grange.

Location precision: Ponden Hall is only reputed to be the Grange, and it does not match the novel's description.

Top Withens is a ruined farmhouse on Haworth Moor, 420 metres above sea level, long linked with Wuthering Heights, where Lockwood visits his landlord Heathcliff in 1801. Ellen Nussey suggested it as the model, yet a plaque on its wall says the buildings bore no resemblance to the house Emily described, though the setting may have been in her mind. Walkers still come, so many from Japan that some footpath signs carry Japanese text.

Location precision: The novel does not identify a real farm; Top Withens is only the traditional candidate.

Visitor guidance: Reached on foot from Haworth or Stanbury along the Brontë Way and the Pennine Way; the moor is exposed, so dress for weather.

In 1845 Charlotte stayed at the Hathersage vicarage with her friend Ellen Nussey, whose brother was the vicar, shortly before she wrote Jane Eyre. Many places in the novel match locations in Hathersage, and Eyre was the name of a local gentry family. Thornfield Hall, where Jane saves Mr Rochester from the fire, is accepted as based on North Lees Hall on the edge of the village. The exact spot is left unpinned here.

Location precision: Thornfield is fictional and its link to North Lees Hall is an accepted identification rather than a documented fact.