News Lower Sixth English Literature Trip to the Brontë Sisters’ Yorkshire 16.06.2025

Last Friday Lower Sixth A Level English Literature students spent two days in rural Yorkshire, the homeland of the famed Brontë authors.

This year the students have studied Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë as one of their core texts for their comparative and contextual study of the ‘Women In Literature’ course and they went to Haworth to immerse themselves in the context of this writer’s works.

They were treated to two comprehensive and insightful talks from the museum curators at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. The students developed their knowledge of the life and inspiration behind the works of these authors before engaging in a range of critical lenses through which Jane Eyre can be read such as class, feminism and post-colonialism. Students were challenged to defend and nuance their interpretations, leaving with plenty of food for thought.  A walking tour led them through Haworth and up onto the rugged moorland, where they walked in the steps of the three Brontë sisters and experienced the setting that inspired Charlotte’s letters and Emily’s poetry and developed new and fuller interpretations of the use of landscape in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

On Saturday, they further immersed themselves in 19th century life by taking the Keighley and Worth Valley heritage steam train back to Haworth. Back in Haworth, they explored the village and the museum which has an extensive collection of original artefacts belonging to the Brontë family and their household; the girls, of course,  leapt at the opportunity to dress up in contemporary garb!

It was wonderful to see the students united by their common interest in literature and enjoying spending time together as a group on this wonderful trip to amplify their learning.