Haworth Churchyard

As previously noted, Haworth Church and the Bronte Parsonage are at the top of a long, very steep hill. The first view of the churchyard is striking in that the gravestones are thicker than any I have seen before.

And there were A LOT of them...

A little research explains why. As the bodies decomposed, everything ran down hill. The water system was at the bottom of the hill and by the time science had advanced far enough for them to figure it out countless residents of Haworth had died from the effects of tainted water.
     *40,000 people were buried in this churchyard
     *41.6% of children in Haworth died before the age of six
     *The average life expectancy was 24.

This gravestone is in memory of Simeon who died at 1 year, Susey who died at 4 years, Nancy who managed to live until 20, and Robert who passed at 10 weeks.

Life must have been very grim for the residents of Haworth.


Guest Blog....

My son-in-law has kindly offered to retell the following story. You will see from the photo how steep the hill up to the Haworth Church is. Thank goodness there is parking at the top of the hill!

While sitting in the lounge at Ascot House in Harrogate, just before retiring for the night, we met an elderly couple from Lancaster. They were very interested to chat with us, as they had been to America many times and loved to talk travel (those many times included 23 trips just to Disneyworld, guess they liked it). One of the most interesting tidbits we picked up from them was a story of Haworth during the Second World War. The lady of the couple was a young girl during the war, and was sent by her mother 'out to the country' to be safe from any possible bombings. She stayed with an aunt (who turned out to be really just a friend of her mother's) near Haworth, and said that she was constantly fascinated by the bus that drove to the top of the big hill there, as it carried not only people, but also any packages that people near the bottom needed to deliver to the top.  She recalled her first experience of this phenomenon, watching in amazement as a very elderly lady hailed the bus, and instead of boarding, handed the driver a covered plate of food, asking for it to be dropped to her husband, working at the top of the hill. For an entire summer she spent most of her time watching the bus go up and down the hill, in awe of the way it connected the community like no city bus ever would.