WORK BEGINS AT THE PARSONAGE

After several months of planning, work is finally underway at the Parsonage. Following our public consultation events we worked hard with Redman Design to develop plans for the changes to be made. These will include new interpretation through the historic rooms of the Parsonage to help tell the Brontë story more effectively to our visitors, new object cases, displays and labelling, as well as various other decorative changes such as new floorcoverings and window blinds to enhance the domestic feel of the museum. It's been a hectic week with all of the museum's displays needing to be removed and existing interpretation panels, floorcoverings and cases stripped out, as well as electrical work which will allow for new cases to be lit. Most of the work is still to be done however; decorations need to be made good, floorcoverings need laying, new stanchions and interpretation panels must be installed, followed by our new object cases; this will be followed by work on preparing object mounts and installing our new displays which we're delighted will include some objects which have come into the museum's collection following our Brontëana Surgery and which will help us to tell visitors a little more about the history of Haworth itself and the social context in which the Brontës lived. We're on target for all the work to be completed by the end of January, ready for re-opening on 1 February.