A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not - 'W'

W - Top Withens

This is another house I had never heard of.

Top Withens, Haworth circa 1900
(Source: Law, Alice 1923; p149 "Patrick Bramwell Bronte." - Public Domain)

I suppose the Haworth name should have given me a clue.

The house is now a roofless ruin but it does have an explanatory plaque.

Top Withens - Bronte Society Plaque
(18 May 2005 - by Dave Dunsford - Public domain)

It's a long time since I read 'Wuthering Heights' but early in Chapter 1 Mr Lockwood finds out that -

"Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr Heathcliff's dwelling. "Wuthering" being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather. Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily, the architect had foresight to build it strong: the narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones."

You have to read on to find out more as I shall also have to.

A-Z Challenge 2017 - Houses, some real, some not - 'F'

F - Ferryside

In 1926, when she was 19, Daphne du Maurier's family found Swiss Cottage, a house on the bank of the River Fowey in Cornwall.

Swiss Cottage

Daphne later described that discovery in Vanishing Cornwall:

"There was a smell in the air of tar and rope and rusted chain, a smell of tidal water. Down harbour, round the point, was the open sea. Here was the freedom I desired, long sought-for, not yet known. Freedom to write, to walk, to wander, freedom to climb hills, to pull a boat, to be alone. It could not be mere chance that brought us to the ferry, and the bottom of Bodinnick hill, and so to the board upon the gate beyond that said For Sale. I remembered a line from a forgotten book, where a lover looks for the first time upon his chosen one – ‘I for this, and this for me."  

The house subsequently renamed Ferryside is inhabited today by Daphne’s son, Christopher (Kits).

It was at Ferryside in 1929 that she wrote her first novel, The Loving Spirit, the title taken from a poem by Emily Bronte:

Alas! the countless links are strong
That bind us to our clay;
The loving spirit lingers long,
And would not pass away!

The discovery of the wreck of the schooner Jane Slade in Pont Creek inspired Daphne. The Slade family were shipbuilders in the nearby village of Polruan on the same side of the Fowey estuary as Ferryside. Daphne researched the family and visited their graves at the local church of Lanteglos. In the book, Polruan became Plyn, Lanteglos became Lanoc and Jane Slade became Janet Coombe. The Loving Spirit is a family saga spanning four generations of the Coombe family, shipbuilders and mariners in and around the Cornish village of Plyn. The figurehead from the Jane Slade was later added to the front of Ferryside.

Ferryside

If you look closely you can see the figurehead on the right hand corner of the house, next to the tree.