The four-mile trail from the village of Haworth to Top Withens in West Yorkshire is well trodden; numerous footprints squelched into the boggy ground by those seeking the view said to have inspired the setting for Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights. The landscape rolls in desolate waves of brown bracken. A lone tree punctuates the scene. It’s bleakly, hauntingly beautiful.
With the release of Emerald Fennell’s new film of the Gothic masterpiece starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi next week, Haworth and many of the filming locations in the Yorkshire Dales national park, where the book is set, are braced for a slew of visitors.
The local residents, though, seem distinctly unfazed by the attention.
“We’re used to crowds,” shrugs Craig Verity, the landlord at the Kings Arms, a pub at the top of Haworth’s steep cobbled Main Street, just steps from the parsonage where the Brontës were raised.
Brontë country has been milking the connection for decades. On a wall in the Kings Arms, a board promotes a selection of Bridgehouse cask ales named Charlotte, Anne, Emily and Branwell, the last being the lesser-known Brontë brother.
In the surrounding streets, there’s the Brontë Hotel and the Brontë Bar and Restaurant, as well as – somewhat tenuously – Brontë Balti.
The Brontë Parsonage, where the sisters lived, wrote and – in Emily and Charlotte’s case – died, is now a museum housing artefacts, personal items and manuscripts, as well as hosting events such as workshops, talks and screenings of adaptations of the books. It draws around 75,000 visitors annually, a number almost sure to rise this year; a screening of 1992’s Wuthering Heights planned for 12 February has already sold out.
Scenes from this version, starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche, were filmed at East Riddlesden Hall, about five miles from Haworth. The exterior of the 17th-century National Trust property also featured in the 2009 mini-series as Wuthering Heights itself, as well as in the now-lost 1920 silent version.
The 1939 Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon film was shot in California and on set in Hollywood.
“We only know about the use of the property because of a January 1921 article in the Shipley Times and Express,” said Sophie Fawcett, a senior marketing and communications officer with the National Trust.
Coinciding with the release of Fennell’s new adaptation, East Riddlesden Hall will be holding a Lights, Camera, Brontë exhibition, which will showcase, for instance, the “vast oak dresser” thought to have inspired the one described in the opening pages of the book. It came originally from Ponden Hall – about an hour’s walk from Haworth and now a bed and breakfast – to which the sisters were frequent visitors.
One room here features a box bed and window, likely to have inspired the scene in which the ghost of Cathy appears to a terrified Lockwood.
For this new film, the cast stayed at Simonstone Hall, a sumptuous country house hotel in Yorkshire Dales. It’s a 20-minute drive from here to Swaledale, where many of the scenes were shot.
“They were lovely people, and brilliantly undemanding,” said the owner, Jake Dinsdale, noting that Robbie had since been back for a stay with her husband. “Although they’d booked out all 20 rooms, our restaurant was still open to the public, and the cast enjoyed being around the firepit to toast s’mores, or sitting down to a roast dinner or afternoon tea.”
His own attitude is equally relaxed. “I don’t know what the film will do,” he said. “It could all be a flash in the pan, and that’s fine. If it sticks, that’s also great. What I do know is that I won’t be renaming any rooms as ‘The Jacob Elordi Room’ or ‘The Heathcliff Room’.
“Commercial naffness isn’t for us – I’ll just be happy if guests understand why so many people love the Yorkshire Dales.”
In the meantime, Simonstone Hall is offering a Wuthering Heights Romantic Getaway package until 13 March: two nights for £738 per couple, including champagne on arrival, candlelit dinners, bedtime brandy and truffles, leisurely breakfasts and late checkout. Copies of the novel are also available in the gift shop.
Tony Watson, head of economy and tourism for North Yorkshire council, said: “The area has featured in so many films and series; we’re experienced in managing that. Post-Covid, we were already seeing more younger people getting outdoors and exploring the county, and this demographic will doubtless grow as the film showcases the area’s beauty and authenticity.
“We’ll have to wait until the release to see whether there’s some iconic shot that people want to replicate. If there is, hopefully it will be somewhere like Aysgarth Falls, which has all of the necessary infrastructure in place – otherwise, we’ll need to suggest alternatives that don’t make mountain rescue unhappy.”
Back at The Kings Arms, Jack Greatrex, who lives in the area, is sanguine. “The Brontë sisters shaped this village for future generations, and for lovers of landscape and literature,” he said. “This film could mean that they continue to do so.”
Whatever effect the new film has, said Watson, they’re ready for it. “I’m the luckiest head of tourism imaginable – the film is going to do my job for me.”
The writer was hosted by The Golden Lion in Settle, a traditional coaching inn with double rooms from £115 B&B.
