Such a pretty graveyard with all the snowdrops and the Victorian gravestones just up the hill from the vicarage in Haworth where the Bronte sisters lived. Itās easy to be swept away with the romance of it all but if I told you that rainwater mixed with the decomposing corpses from this same graveyard running downhill towards the houses was the cause of disease and death in Howath when the sisters were busy writing their books, would that spoil it for you? According to a report by Benjamin Babbage in 1850 āThe findings of Babbageās report are shocking. Haworth was a small industrial mill town, and the view onto the moors was broken by tall smoking chimneys. Excrement ran down the street; for want of sewers, fenced in areas held human waste, offal from the slaughterhouse and pigsty waste for up to months at a time. Housing was poorly ventilated and overcrowded, with several dwellings in cellars. The average life expectancy was 25.8 years; 41.6% died before the age of six. Perhaps most appallingly, Babbageās investigation confirmed that the graveyard, situated on the hill at the top of the town and in front of the BrontĆ«sā home, was so overcrowded and poorly oxygenated that decomposing, putrid matter filtered into the water supply. ā #happy #bronte #brontecountry #haworth
