Anne Bronte’s Grave
Accompanied by her older sister, Charlotte and their friend, Ellen Nussey, Anne Brontë arrived in Scarborough on 25th May, 1849. She had advanced tuberculosis and had been diagnosed in January, only a few weeks after the death of Emily. Anne died on the 28th May, aged 29, and was buried, as she wished, in Scarborough, to spare Charlotte the task of taking her coffin back to their home in Haworth, and her elderly father the anguish of burying his third child in the space of nine months.
Anne, Charlotte and Ellen had taken rooms at Number 2 on St Nicholas Cliff. While working as a governess for the Robinson family from 1840 to 1845, Anne had accompanied the family on their long summer holidays to Scarborough and developed a great fondness for the place. Both her novels – The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey – contain locations inspired by her time spent in the town.
Anne’s gravestone contained a number of errors that Charlotte noticed when she visited it for the first time three years later. As can be seen in the photo above, her age is incorrect and this was not corrected until 2011, when the Brontë Society installed a new plinth below the original gravestone. Although I have been to Yorkshire many times, I have not been to Scarborough since my son was little and so I have not seen this addition.
