I stepped over the threshold. It was a fine autumn morning; the early sun shone serenely on embrowned groves and still green fields; advancing on to the lawn, I looked up and surveyed the front of the mansion. It was three storeys high, of proportions not vast, though considerable: a gentleman’s manor-house, not a nobleman’s seat: battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.
Charlotte Bronte’s description of Thornfield Hall from Jane Eyre
I’ve written about this before – that the Derbyshire village of Hathersage and its bleak high moors seem to have provided Charlotte Bronte with much of her setting inspiration for Jane Eyre (See earlier post Jane Eyre was here: or was she? ). But on our recent trip to Derbyshire I had the chance to have a look at North Lees for myself and take these photos.
The house sits on a wooded hillside above Hathersage and below the millstone scarp of Stanage Edge. There is the sense of great isolation there, and it was anyway not a good day for photographs. But my timing was apt given Bronte’s description.
Jane Eyre was published in 1847. In 1845 Charlotte Bronte spent three weeks in Hathersage, staying with her old school friend Ellen Nussey, the vicar’s sister. The vicar himself, Henry Nussey, was away on his honeymoon. He had apparently once proposed to Charlotte and been rejected. His absence from the vicarage may well have been chosen for an opportune time for her visit. The two friends then did the rounds of local worthies, including more than one visit to North Lees Hall.
At the time George Eyre, his widowed mother and two sisters were living there. The Eyres had lived in the house since 1750. During the 1400s members of the same dynasty had lived in the manor house that preceded the present hall which dates from around the 1590s. During one of Charlotte’s visits she is said to have been told the grim tale of a previous ‘lady of the house’, one Agnes Ashurst, who became mad and was confined on the second floor, in a room with padded walls so she would not injure herself. Like Edward Rochester’s wife in the novel, she apparently also died in a fire.
Clearly it was a story too good to waste. It is also an excellent example of how writers hoard everything and anything that resonates: tales, impressions, details of vistas and people, all to be reworked in the ‘world building’ process of creating a convincing context for their narrative.
Knowing that a writer’s source of inspiration could be a real place does not add to our appreciation of the novel; for some it may even detract, and especially if they subscribe to the (false) notion that fiction writers make everything up. Of course they don’t. Immaculate conception without source material to inform the creative process simply does not happen. Here’s some more description of the hall’s surroundings:
Leaning over the battlements and looking far down, I surveyed the grounds laid out like a map: the bright and velvet lawn closely girdling the grey base of the mansion; the field, wide as a park, dotted with its ancient timber; the wood, dun and sere, divided by a path visibly overgrown, greener with moss than the trees were with foliage.
Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre
copyright 2018 Tish Farrell
Tish Farrell 
I can almost envision living there myself. Not to grand and certainly not shabby.
It was a holiday let for a time. It’s owned by the National Parks, and the single storey part is used by students working the estate farm. There’s a little video on YouTube showing the interior of the main house.
Oh, what an interesting place to visit…but how terribly remote….Stanage Edge looks bleak
Stanage definitely looked its bleakest on that day – as if the sky had forgotten to put the light on. We had to walk through a dank wood to reach the house, though I think there is a lane up from Hathersage SOMEWHERE.
Oooh, gloomy!
Charlotte Bronte was here… Thank you so much for the post, Tish!
Thank you, Amy.
‘Jane Eyre’ is one of my favourite novels. This house does fit perfectly with my internal picture of Thornfield.
Am glad it fits, Ali. Horrid to spoil someone’s envisioning of a favourite novel.
Never read the book, but the photographs depict that all too familiar feeling of looking at the sky through the lid of a Tupperware box – bleak.
Oh, yes indeedy! The casual remark by a friend that she was learning about the ”Nine Amendments” at
bible study prompted one such narrative that extended to nearly 90,000 words!
We still laugh about it.
The 9 amendments, eh. Blimey! That is an extension and a half. A touch overblown perhaps 😉
I kid you not. If I hadn’t heard her say it I would not have believed it myself. And she said it with a straight face as well!
One very confused (new) Christian!
I really like knowing the background. Thanks for that as well as the photos.
janet
Glad you liked this, Janet 🙂
How interesting to know about the background of this famous novel. And it certainly looks the way it made me feel. But the latest movie made out of the novel was not well liked by my students. I guess this story is best read – like so many others.
I haven’t seen the latest movie. Nor am I really inclined to. The book is so readable and vivid, film versions seem a bit superfluous. Better to go on and read Jean Rhys’s Wide Sargasso Sea which I think is a brilliant prequel ( before they were even properly invented).
Amazing to this Angelino that the buildings are still there, looking much as they did back in the Eyre days. Lovely photos of course.
Hello, Stephen. Lovely to hear from you 🙂
This is wonderful, Tish. And your photos are outstanding. I can imagine Charlotte Bronte being there.
Definitely a house to inspire a story, and the description is spot on
So gorgeous! What a wonderful place 😍
It’s so striking, isn’t it.
Loved the book from very young and would never see a movie as I didn’t want it to change in my memories. I think I need to visit this place one day. Great back story.
Thank you for commenting, Linda.
I was watching something on TV about this place recently, but can I remember what? Sometimes I do get quite concerned about my short term memory, and don’t begin to ask me about names and faces! The number of times whilst watching a programme I will say, “I recognise that face, I wonder what he/she has been in” An interesting building, but as Sue mentions, in quite a gloomy place.
I know what you mean memory-wise. I can look something up and have forgotten it in the next blink of an eye. V. frustrating.
Phew! Glad it’s not just me then.
I’ll always remember being spellbound when Miss King in junior school read Jane Eyre to my class.
It is so readable. I read it again recently.
It’s like walking into the novel. 😀
Nicely put. Thank you 🙂