Bronte enthusiast creates model of Victorian Haworth exactly as the sisters would have known it
To walk in the footsteps of the Brontes, Yorkshire’s most beloved and celebrated literary family, requires something of an imagination for Haworth’s millions of pilgrims.
With its plethora of independent stores and coffee shops, walking up the village’s Main Street towards the Bronte Parsonage in 2026 is, of course, a very different experience to how it would have been when those three writerly sisters called it home.
But now the village has been faithfully recreated as it would have been in the 1840s - in miniature.
Paul Crossley is a volunteer at the Parsonage, and his impressive diorama, some three years in the making, merges his two passions: model making and the history of the Bronte family.
A fan since being mesmerised by The Brontes of Haworth TV series in 1973, he has a particular interest in Branwell Bronte, who struggled with addiction.
“I was reading one of Ann Dinsdale’s fabulous books about the Brontes. She’s the curator of the Parsonage and in the book was a map of how the street would have looked in the 1840s,” Mr Crossley explained.
“And it got me to thinking, what if I could make a model of that? I’ve been doing model making for 60 years now and it’s almost a kind of illness.”
Using a scale of 2mm to a foot, Paul recreated the maps on his kitchen floor, sellotaping A4 pieces of paper together to work out the exact layout of his planned village.
“Lots of the buildings described have since been demolished,” he explained “So I had to use my imagination - I see myself as a bit of a frustrated architect.”
The Parsonage, the Sunday School and Haworth’s Church tower are all recognisable in Paul’s diorama, although he had to do some digging to ensure accuracy, particularly in the case of the church, which was partially rebuilt in the 1870s.
“I decided I was going to base the diorama in the year 1845, which was a milestone year in the Bronte saga. Patrick [the writers’ vicar father] had got himself a new curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls, who would go on to become Charlotte’s husband,” he said.
“It was also the year Anne resigned her job, Branwell got sacked and Charlotte discovered Emily’s poetry.”
Paul’s commitment to accuracy even stretched as far as ensuring replicas of gravestones were in keeping with the year he chose.
He brought his diorama to the Parsonage for a short display, where he was told by one staff member that she’d “never been able to visualise Victorian Haworth, but now she saw it in an instant.”
A spokesperson for the Bronte Parsonage said: “Paul has been a dedicated and valued volunteer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum for many years. We really admire the time and skill which he has put into this remarkable model, and we're all delighted that he's receiving recognition for his work.”