A new chapter is written in the life of a landmark West Yorkshire building
Ponden Hall, a Bronte landmark, has been renovated by owners Julie Akhurst and Steve Brown. The hall, a Grade II listed building high on the Pennine Way in West Yorkshire, is said to be the inspiration for Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights.
They moved into the property in 1998 and began extensive, vital restoration work, including insulating and re-laying the impressive stone slate roof and installing underfloor heating throughout the ground floor.
The 1680 peat loft is now a stylish, self-contained cottage, with English oak flooring, extensive kitchen, two bedrooms with en suite bathrooms and underfloor heating throughout.
The Bront� connection
The Bront� sisters are strongly associated with the house. It has long been argued that it was the inspiration behind the house Thrushcross Grange in Wuthering Heights, although recent scholarly opinion has begun to identify it more closely with the Wuthering Heights house itself.
On the east gable end of the house, a tiny single-paned window is said to be the one Emily used in her novel, where Cathy’s ghost scratched furiously at the glass, trying to get in.Both Branwell and Emily Bront� used the library – once reputedly the finest in West Yorkshire – and Branwell wrote a short story about the house, Thurston’s at Darkwall.
We take a walk through the property in pictures to see the painstaking renovation that has taken place over the last 13 years.
