Thornbush Farm

Details

99/0/10074
24-JUL-06

OFF WINDY BANK LANE & SECOND AVENUE
Hightown
Thornbush Farm

II

Also Known As: Lousy Farm,
OFF WINDY BANK LANE & SECOND AVENUE, Hightown
Farmstead, Late C18 with later additions and alterations, coursed rubble, some brick, stone slate roof and brick ridge chimney stacks. Two storeys, main range of single room depth, and ruinous wing to left.

EXTERIOR: Original pair of cottages with end ridge stacks, central adjoining doors, each with two-light stone mullioned ground floor window, one with surviving shutter but both without glazing, plus one two-light and one three-light stone mullioned windows on first floor, with later sash frames, glazing gone. Two light first floor window has been altered. Left hand door blocked with stone, right hand doorway has six-panelled wooden door. Further cottage added to right, with end ridge stack, having a door to the left, and a three-light stone mullioned window to ground and first floor. Wing to the left, largely ruinous, remaining gable to front in C20 brick with large stone quoins and window opening on ground and first floor, right return to main range of coursed rubble with doorway to left and ground floor window opening, rest demolished. Rear elevation has one single light to first floor in earliest part, one ground floor window to later cottage. To the right are the remains of a lean-to building in brick.

INTERIOR: not inspected: information from photographs supplied with application. Stone flag floors, original cornices and skirting boards. C19 range in cottage to right, other fireplaces, doors etc said to survive elsewhere.

HISTORY: The farm, then known as Lousy Farm, was occupied by Reverend Patrick Bronte, father of the Bronte sisters, at the beginning of the nineteenth century. He lodged there with his landlords, Mr and Mrs Bedford, at the start of his ministry at Hartshead, from 1811 to around 1815. He met his wife Maria Branwell while living here, and published "Cottage Poems", his first major work. It is possible that Maria and Elizabeth were also born here. There is also a connection to the Luddite riots, with a march to Rawfolds Mill passing the door; an event that Charlotte Bronte used in her novel "Shirley". It is not clear when Patrick left the farm, but it may not have been until his move to Thornton in 1815.

SOURCES
Barker, J. "The Brontes" 1994
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, T J Winnifrith, "Patrick Bronte"

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE
This is a set of cottages dating to the late eighteenth century, converted into a single dwelling probably in the nineteenth century and little altered since. The building is partly derelict, with one wing mostly demolished, but it has significant historic interest as the home of Patrick Bronte when he took up his first full ministry, met and married his wife, published his first major work and where one or perhaps two of his children were born. It is in the main for this historic interest that the building should be listed.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

493462

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Patrick Brontë, ()
Barker, J, The Brontës, (1994)

End of official list entry

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