The Red House, West Yorkshire
Delightful 1830’s cloth merchant’s home with fascinating Brontë connections. Charlotte Brontë visited often and featured Red House in her novel “Shirley”. Includes period rooms, enchanting recreated gardens and exhibitions in restored outbuildings. Built in 1660, the house was home to the Taylor family who were cloth merchants and manufacturers.
Mary Taylor, daughter of the house in the 19th Century, was a close friend of Charlotte Bronte, who visited often, featuring the house as ‘Briarmains’ in ‘Shirley’. Her fondness for the house is evident: “There was no splendour but there was taste everywhere.”
Red House still looks very much as it would have in Charlotte’s day. Each of the rooms brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its Yorkshire range, jelly moulds and colourful crockery.
Winner of Sandford Award 2005.
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