Brontë sisters to adorn street names in Thornton house development

Streets on a new housing development in West Yorkshire are to be named after the Brontë sisters and their books after a council approved the plan.

The 160 homes will be built near the village of Thornton, near Bradford, where the literary sisters were born.

The names include Charlotte Brontë Way, Jane Eyre Lane and Wuthering Heights.

Bradford City Council approved the plan for all 14 streets on the new estate to be named after the famous siblings, Charlotte, Emily and Anne.

Branwell Brontë, the trio's brother, and their mother Maria will also have streets named after them.

The council is trying to better recognise "pioneering women" from the Bradford district.

Other streets will include Shirley Mews, Anne Brontë Avenue, Agnes Grey Lane, Elizabeth Brontë Mews and Patrick Brontë Court.

There were no objections when the street names went before a council committee on Thursday and they were unanimously approved, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Born in Thornton in the first part of the 19th Century the children grew up in the parsonage in Haworth, where their father Patrick Brontë was the local vicar.

All four wrote poetry and novels from an early age, with the women writing their works initially under pen names.

Emily published her only novel Wuthering Heights, inspired by the moors near her home, in 1847 at the age of 30. She died of tuberculosis the following year.

Charlotte, author of Jane Eyre, and Anne, who wrote Agnes Grey and the The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, also died young.

Branwell, who wrote poetry and painted, died in 1848 at the age of 31 after becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].