Bronte sisters' home to become restaurant

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte's house in the village of Thornton near Bradford was sold for about 100,000 pounds last week to a private developer, who reportedly plans to turn the residence into a bistro.

Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte's house in the village of Thornton near Bradford was sold for about 100,000 pounds last week to a private developer, who reportedly plans to turn the residence into a bistro.

There has been a long-running campaign to turn the four-bedroom property in west Yorkshire into a museum to celebrate the early years of Bronte sisters.

The house's literary legacy earned it a Grade II listing. The Bronte family lived in the residence for just five years before Rev Patrick Bronte moved them eight miles to the Parsonage in Haworth, where many of their great literary works were written.

The Bronte Birthplace Trust group have vowed to continue their campaign and will bide their time until the house comes on the market again, the Telegraph reported.

Earlier efforts to make the house into a heritage centre have failed; in 1996 the Heritage Lottery Fund rejected an application for a 500,000-pound grant.

Novelist Barbara Whitehead, bought and renovated the property in 1820s style, but visitor were low and her failing health forced her to sell it in 2007.

Today the house is unoccupied and is believed to have suffered from flooding.