THE CHRISTMAS holidays are the last chance for people to experience three special exhibitions in Haworth marking the bicentenary of Emily Bronte.

Flagship exhibition Making Thunder Roar, featuring celebrities’ and academics’ responses to Emily’s work, will end on January 1.

Until that day visitors can also see a recreation of Emily’s lost Wuthering Heights manuscript, and listen to an audio installation inspired by Wuthering Heights’ dark hero Heathcliff.

The Bronte Parsonage Museum will close at 5pm on January 1 for a month so that staff can carry out important conservation and cleaning work.

They will also prepare new exhibitions to mark the 200th anniversary of Patrick Bronte being appointed the minister for Haworth parish.

Making Thunder Roar, which opened last February, was designed to shed light on a woman who is regarded as one of the greatest writers in English literature despite very little being known about her.

A museum spokesman said: “What we do know survives as fragments of information from the people who knew her best, while years of fascination by her biographers have introduced speculation and myth to fill the gaps in our knowledge.

“The exhibition invited a number of well-known Emily admirers to share their own fascination with her life and work.

“Specially-commissioned contributions from Maxine Peake, Lily Cole and Helen Oyeyemi amongst others resulted in a thought-provoking selection of Emily’s possessions, writing and artwork as well as some of the well-loved household objects she used daily.

“These personal responses to Emily acknowledge the gaps in our understanding about this intriguing writer, but also encourage fresh perspectives on her life and work.”

On show in the museum since last March has been a new handwritten manuscript of Wuthering Heights created through a project led by artist Clare Twomey.

Clare invited more than 10,000 visitors to the Bronte Parsonage Museum during 2017 to help recreate Emily’s original, and long-lost, manuscript for the famous novel.

The project captured the imaginations of visitors from around the world, aged six to 90, who each wrote a line.

The final line was written by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall on her visit to the museum last February, and the completed manuscript was bound, along with the names of everyone who participated.

The last display due to end on January 1 is The Outsider, an audio installation created by artist and researcher Rachel Emily Taylor with children from Keighley schools.

In 2017 the children explored ideas of a ‘contemporary Heathcliff’, and were recorded reading poetry about being in the landscape.

The Outsider shaped these readings into ‘clock chimes’, reminiscent of Lockwood’s four-hour fictional journey between Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, the routine of the contemporary classroom, the strictness of Heathcliff’s treatment, and how the children felt out on the moors.

The Outsider can be experienced within the historic rooms of the Bronte Parsonage Museum.

Continuing until March 31 will be the new Emily Bronte Song Cycle, entitled Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee, created by composer and pianist Adrian McNally who put music to Emily’s songs.

Folk singers Becky and Rachel Unthanks, who perform as The Unthanks with Adrian, recorded the songs. They are available to visitors as an audio experience.

Visitors play the recording through earphones as they follow Emily’s footsteps to nearby Penistone Hill to witness the dramatic landscape that inspired all three Brontë sisters.

Although the museum is closed between January 2 and February 3, the audio experience will still be available to collect from the museum shop.

Devotion, a historic Bronte movie from 1946, will be screened at Haworth’s West Lane Baptist Centre on January 14 at 1pm.

A Bronte Parsonage Museum spokesman said: “The Golden Age of Hollywood produced some classic Bronte adaptations, including the often-forgotten gem which retells the story of the Bronte family.

“Starring Olivia de Havilland, Paul Henreid and Ida Lupino. Devotion has been described as ‘better cinema than history’, but is certainly entertaining either way!”

Admission is free, and advance booking is not needed.

Next year’s events to celebrate the Bronte father’s bicentenary will begin on February 2 with Winter Wander Through Patrick’s Haworth.

A museum spokesman said: “In 2019 we are marking the life and legacy of the Rev Patrick Bronte, the inspiring and unconventional father of the famous sisters and a remarkable campaigner and reformer in his own right.

“Join our museum guides as they uncover stories and secrets of the village Mr Bronte would have known in this brand new storytelling walk.

“You might run into local characters like John Brown or Aunt Branwell, or even visiting health visitor Mr Babbage, as they share the stories of the indomitable Mr Bronte.”

The “insightful and fun-filled” walk lasts approximately 45 minutes and will begin and end outside the Old School Room, Church Street. Sensible footwear is recommended.

Visit bronte.org.uk or call 01535 640192 for further information about all the activities.