Thornfield Hall from Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre

“I like Thornfield, its antiquity, its retirement, its old crow-trees and thorn trees, its gray facade, and lines of dark windows reflecting that metal welkin: and yet how long have I abhorred the very thought of it, shunned it like a great plaque-house. How I do still abhor.”

This quote is from Jane Eyre’s Mr. Rochester, speaking to Jane, reflecting on the peace he has found after returning to Thornfield after his absence. Yet, it also depicts his internal struggle, his love and hate relationship with Thornfield Hall, the way he finds refuge in it while simultaneously despising it. To understand why this is so, you may enjoy reading Mr. Rochester, which tells his story, from his point of view.

Scholars believe Thornfield Hall was based on two houses of which Bronte had been familiar. One, Rydings, the home of Bronte’s friend, Ellen Nessey, found in Birstall, the other, Norton Conyers, located in Ripton and was owned by Frederick Greenwood, a family of which Bronte occasionally visited.

For more posts about other famous literary houses, click: Satis House from the Dickens novel Great Expectations and Merlyn’s Cottage and The Castle of the Forest Sauvage from British mythology, and The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel of the same name.

All photos courtesy of Literary Houses: Ten Famous Houses In Fiction by Rosalind Ashe.

Jane’s bedroom, directly below the room where Grace Poole spends her time sewing…and guarding.

The small church to the houses’s left contains the tomb of a Rochester who had died fighting the Royalists in the Civil War, proof that the estate has been in the Rochester family for a very long time.

Thornfield’s entrance hall: A brass chandelier, no carpet on the stairs, the walls lined with generations of family portraits.

Red and white. An arch separates the Great Drawing Room and Dining Room.

Thornfield Hall in ruins, with blackened walls and wide open to the sky.