Cowan Bridge School (Bronte location)

 

Most people know about Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte but there were two older sisters who were born before them – Maria and Elizabeth. Here I am at Cowan Bridge School in Lancashire where the middle-class clergy sent their daughters and both girls died as a result of their attendance here. They died of tuberculosis aged 11 and 10 with just six weeks of one another. Charlotte and Emily were also at the school and brought home to the Haworth Parsonage quickly (shortly before Elizabeth’s death.)

 

When I arrived in Cowan Bridge - a one horse town - I pulled up beside what looked to be the only shop and bought some milk. I made a coffee in the back of the motorhome but some of the passing traffic was so fast the motorhome rocked a little as it passed. As I took some photos of the village and I could see a woman in a window on her telephone. She quickly put the receiver down and ran out to enquire what I was doing. I said I was strolling up to the cottages that was once Cowan Bridge School. She was disappointed, hoping I was from the council and was going to put measures in place to the slow the traffic as it was “the main rabbit run from Yorkshire up to the Lake District.”

 

After a chat I walked 100m to the cottages that once made up part of the school. It was a mild-weathered Saturday afternoon and the owners were working outside with wheelbarrows and spades. I had a chat with all three owners and thankfully they were used to visitors and the odd full coach pulling up. I took a few photos and one of the owners said the cottages were part of the school but a fire in the main part meant it was demolished. The cottages shown were thought to be part of the sleeping quarters.

 

The owners left me to take a few photos and got on with gardening (“but don’t get my reg plate in any of the photos will you?” a man said.) The middle cottage has been done up and you can rent it for short durations. The owner gave me a card with her contact details however she was not angling for business as it was excellent and the place was rarely empty. While doing up the place she’d prised off the floorboards and found some dishes and plates from the time it was a school. About eighty girls attended the school.

 

I went across the road I took a few photos and wondered what the village was like in the 1820s. Quiet, rural, isolated, slow-paced, sparsely populated, dark at night due to a lack of light, freezing in the winter. The Bronte girls hated it. After their mum died their dad Reverend Patrick found bringing up his children stressful and in 1824 four daughters were sent here. They were some of the youngest boarders here and were taunted by the older girls. They were classed as “Charity Children” and forced to wear a uniform. They laughed at Charlotte who was so short-sighted she had to hold a book inches from her face to read. Two girls shared each bed, they rose in darkness, washed in cold water (sometimes frozen due to no heating) and came downstairs for an hour and a half of prayers before often-burnt porridge for breakfast. Lessons were from 9:30am to 12 noon followed by recreation in the garden. Lessons continued to 5pm. The day ended with a glass of water, an oatcake before more prayers and then bed.

 

Every Sunday pupils had to walk more than three miles over the fields in all weathers to their pastor's church to attend the service. As it was a long day there was a cold snack half way through their devotions and on arriving back at school they had a single slice of bread spread with rancid butter. Naughtiness meant food and recreation time was curtailed and being made to sit on a stool for hours without moving while wearing a dunce's cap.

 

The Bronte girls bore it out but the saviour was not far away in the form of typhoid which swept through the village in 1825. Deaths forced the school to be moved to the coast. Reverend Patrick brought his daughters back home but his two older daughters soon died. Charlotte was deeply affected by the deaths and the school remained in her mind, probably resurrecting as “Lowood School” in her novel "Jane Eyre".

 

As I was walking back to the motorhome the lady who owned the cottage-for-rent came rushing across the road. Had I offended her by taking too many photos? Thankfully not; she had probably deduced I was a slightly obsessed geek and said it was worth me heading to the nearby church to find out the “typhoid graves” in the rear corner of the cemetery. I went for a look (see photos.) Approximately twenty girls were withdrawn from the school but it was too late and seven dying shortly after.

 

If you would like the stay in the cottage the link is here: www.bronteschoolhouse.com

 

 

 

How it looked in its day?…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is this the original boot scraper?...

 

Around the back…

 

 

Not much in Cowan Bridge…

 

Just off the main road is the church where some of the people who died from typhoid were buried…

 

Up by the “Typhoid Graves”…

 

These girls died at the school itself…