The dining table
The table around which the three sisters wrote their novels and read them aloud to each other at night, back in its original room since 2015.
Three sisters in a small stone house on the edge of a hilltop village, writing around the same dining table, produced three novels that are still in print nearly 180 years later: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. This is the parsonage at Haworth, where Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë lived with their father, the Reverend Patrick, from 1820, and where Emily and Anne died within months of each other in 1848-49, aged 30 and 29. The rooms have barely moved on: the dining table the sisters paced around at night, reading their pages aloud to each other, was sold out of the house and bought back in 2015, and stands in the dining room again; upstairs are their tiny dresses, their letters and manuscripts written in a hand so small it is hard to read unaided. It is a genuinely small house, and you should know that before deciding. Both floors take about an hour; the narrow stone staircase to the first floor is sixteen steps with no lift, and pushchairs have to be folded and left in the shop. On summer weekends the little rooms fill up fast, so arrive for the ten o'clock opening. Tickets are bought online through the Brontë Society or at the welcome desk, with no timed slots; an adult pays £15 for the 2026-27 season, children up to 11 go free with a family, and the ticket is valid for a whole year. The museum opens Wednesday to Monday and is closed every Tuesday, with last entry at 16:00. In some years it shuts for a few weeks in January for conservation, so check the site before a winter trip. In truth the museum is only half the story. From its door begins the crowded graveyard that hems the house in on two sides, then the church where the father was incumbent (rebuilt in the 1880s; only the tower survives from the Brontës' day), then the steep cobbled Main Street sliding down through the village with its small cafés and shops, and directly behind the house the open moors that Emily made famous. The round trip to the Brontë Waterfall takes about two hours, and to the ruin at Top Withens roughly three to four hours across empty, windswept ground: glorious on a clear summer day, punishing in November rain. Getting there from Bradford is straightforward: a train from Forster Square to Keighley takes about 20 minutes, then either a roughly fifteen-minute bus to Haworth or the heritage steam train on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway, which runs at weekends, bank holidays and daily in summer and is a treat for children in its own right. From Haworth station it is a stiff ten-minute climb to the top of the village. By car allow 30 to 40 minutes, with pay-and-display car parks by the museum and at the foot of the village. Arrive by bus or train, show your travel ticket at the welcome desk and you pay £12 instead of £15. It is a full day for anyone who loves books or walking, and perhaps half a day for a family with young children who will be happiest with the steam train and the village.
The table around which the three sisters wrote their novels and read them aloud to each other at night, back in its original room since 2015.
The world's largest collection of Brontë manuscripts and letters, alongside their tiny dresses and Charlotte's own writing desk.
Waymarked paths start at the museum door to the Brontë Waterfall (two hours) and the Top Withens ruin (three to four hours).
Church Street, Haworth, BD22 8DR
The museum itself, no: it is a small house of quiet rooms and written labels, with a narrow staircase and no lift, and pushchairs stay in the shop. The day as a whole, yes: the steam train from Keighley, the steep village street and a short walk on the moors make a lovely family outing, with the house kept to a single hour.
There are no timed slots, so booking online secures the price but not a quiet visit. More useful than booking is timing: arrive at ten or after three on summer weekends, because the rooms are small and fill up quickly through the middle of the day.