FANS FROM near and far visited the Brontë shrine in Haworth when it reopened after the winter break.

The Brontë Parsonage Museum opened its doors to the public last week after the annual spruce-up and conservation work on the many exhibits.

The first two sets of visitors to the Brontë family’s 19th century home hailed from Haworth itself and Catalonia in Spain.

Local women Sharon Lambert and Sharn Fuisdale rubbed shoulders with foreign tourists Alicia Camps and Helena Aguilar.

They each received a copy of The Brontë Cabinet by Deborah Lutz, before heading off to see the rooms where Charlotte, Emily and Ann wrote their famous novels.

They had a treat in store, as they were the first visitors to see Charlotte Great And Small, an exhibition marking the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Jane Eyre author.

Among the items in the exhibition is a detailed re-creation in wool of a pivotal moment from Jane Eyre.

The human figures and four-poster bed, which went down a storm during the exhibition’s official launch last Friday, have been created by Denise Salway, alias the Knitting Witch.

Denise, from Wales, has achieved renown in the knitting world for her figures depicting many characters from films, TV and literature.

She came to prominence in 2013, after she began knitting dwarf characters from JRR Tolkien’s novel The Hobbit and was praised by actors playing the characters in the film trilogy.

Charlotte Great And Small begins a year of events both at the parsonage and across the UK to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth.

Long-established comedy duo LipService were in Haworth recently to film Charlotte – The Movie! which will be screened in Haworth this year.

The BBC is also playing a part, with a new drama about the Brontë family commissioned from leading TV playwright Sally Wainwright.

Renowned for gritty modern dramas Last Tango In Halifax and Happy Valley, with the Brontë drama To Walk Invisible she promises authenticity instead of “chocolate box representations”.

She said: “It’s very easy for these kind of historic dramas to slip into easy cliche, but right from the start I was determined to get past the Brontë myth which has inevitably romanticised and overshadowed the lives and careers of Emily, Charlotte and Anne.

“I wanted to immerse myself in what life was really like for these three women living in the north of England.”