Welcome to West Yorkshire – Haworth

They always say write about what you know, so I’ll start with a lovely village just up the road from where I live now, Haworth.  If you’re a Bronte fan, you know that this tiny village was home to three of the most well known women in British Literature, Charlotte, Anne, and Emily Bronte.  But that’s just one draw for tourists to Haworth.  The village is positively bursting with charm and character and while its main street is steep enough to be daunting, the hike is well worth the effort.

Haworth Main Street, June 2009

Haworth, like most villages its size with any sort of historical claim to fame, is filled with shops and tea rooms and B&Bs.  The village also has a very active social calendar, including a 1940′s weekend in May, a 1960′s weekend in the summer, and the Pipes, Bows and Bells Weekend near Christmas.

I first visited Haworth in the summer of 1995 when my family lived in the UK for six weeks on a United Methodist Pulpit Exchange.  It was great to see, upon returning for the first time in 2007, that I recognized the main street and some of the buildings, and that Haworth was still as charming and lovely as I’d found it twelve years prior.

My other focus on TOB (besides being an expat and living in this amazing country)  is traveling with pets, and I’m pleased to say that Haworth offers a number of accomodations, some inside the village and some in nearby villages, that welcome furry family members.  Haworth, like many other places in the UK, seems to me to be more accommodating of those of us that share our lives with animals.

The best way to get to Haworth, if traveling without animals, is to take the steam train on the Keighley Worth Valley Railroad (KWVR). The train itself is a working piece of history, and provides marvelous vistas out the giant windows as it chugs along its route from Keighley to Oxenhope.   The train calls at Keighley (where it connects travelers to the national rail lines via the Leeds/Skipton/Bradford line), Ingrow West (near the Museum of Rail Travel), Damems (smallest station in Britain), Oakworth (whose station was featured in the 1970s movie, “The Railway Children”) Haworth (a short walk through a lovely park from the station will take you right to the Bronte parsonage) and Oxenhope.  You can make an entire dayout  of it with a very reasonably priced ticket that allows you to get on and off as you like as often as you like and will still take you back to make your connection to the rest of the railway lines at Keighley when you’re finished.

Haworth is great for a day out and I think has everything for the casual traveler and the serious Bronte fan alike.  Great festivals, lovely and welcoming people, and a chance to feel like you’ve stepped back into picturesque British history.  What more do you need?