The Old Vicarage, Hathersage

I struggled to find the vicarage on Church Walk - the road rising up to the church. I had a photograph of the front of the vicarage and expected my eyes to fall on the reality at any moment. No luck. I found it once I was up behind the church. The public don't get to see front that appears in all most Bronte-related books.

Charlotte Bronte often visited the Grade 2 listed vicarage with her friend Ellen Nussey. Ellen’s brother Henry had been made vicar of the church and in the two years he held the role Charlotte came to know Hathersage town quite well. Her most famous novel was Jane Eyre and the Eyres were the leading family in the Hathersage area at that time (there’re nearly 20 of them buried in and around the church.)

I couldn’t get up close to the vicarage as there was a man fiddling with his car which was on the small parking area (though I’m sure they’re used to people gawping at the place.) I had a stroll around the cemetery as Charlotte would have done and went inside the church. The name Eyre was ubiquitous (they lived about a mile away at the grand North Lees Hall which Charlotte fictionalised into Thornfield Hall.)

I doubt the outside of the vicarage has changed since 1845 when the 29-year-old Charlotte visited for the first time. She came to stay for three weeks while the vicar was away on honeymoon (he'd once proposed to Charlotte but she declined.) The place must have made some impression on her as Jane Eyre was published by the time she was 31. Hathersage must have permeated into the novelist's mind too as it became "Morton" in Jane Eyre.

I went to look at the long grave of Little John who is buried on the perimeter of the cemetery (Robin Hood's lieutenant of the Merry Men.) When I returned to the vicarage the man messing with his car went in and I took a few photos. He was probably quite wealthy as this vicarage with its 6 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms and 3 reception rooms sold in 2016 for £1.1 million. I did a salute and left.