Caught in a Wuthering Mood? These Heritage Houses Bring the Drama.
At HeritageXplore, we take you beyond the screen — into the landscapes, legends, and labyrinthine halls that feel ripped from a Brontë novel. Wild, romantic, a little bit haunted. These are places that don't just look the part. They are the part.
Here are six homes that channel maximum Heathcliff energy.
Haddon Hall, Derbyshire
The house that time forgot. Left virtually untouched for 200 years whilst the family decamped to Belvoir, Haddon stands frozen in its 16th-century glory - no Georgian makeover, no Victorian meddling. Stone-flagged floors worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, a 14th-century Great Hall with original minstrels' gallery, and medieval frescoes hidden behind Reformation whitewash until the 1920s. This is where Dorothy Vernon allegedly eloped down those famous stone steps in 1563 - and where Jane Eyre found Thornfield Hall. Roses cascade down ancient limestone walls each summer. Pure, preserved, gothic perfection.
2. Lowther Castle, Cumbria
What Lowther lacks in roof, it makes up for in romance. Built in 1812 for the 1st Earl of Lonsdale, Lowther was once so grand it boasted a room for every day of the year. Then came the 'Yellow Earl' in the early 1900s - horses, hounds, orchestras travelling in their own train carriages - who spent through the family fortune. By 1936, the trustees had had enough. In 1957, the roof came off. What remains is ravishing: a Gothic shell open to Cumbrian skies, where wild gardens surge through what were once ballrooms, and nature and nobility dance in eternal ruin. Wordsworth wrote poetry here. Turner painted it. Now it stands as romantic desolation incarnate.
3. Gwrych Castle, North Wales
Clinging to cliffsides above the Irish Sea with eighteen turrets piercing the mist, Gwrych is a Victorian Gothic fever dream built as a memorial to ancient ancestors. Constructed 1812-1822, it once housed 200 Jewish refugee children during WWII - a sanctuary in darkness. After decades of abandonment and vandalism, the castle became famous as the pandemic home of I'm a Celebrity. But beneath the reality TV veneer lies something more compelling: 128 rooms with an Italian marble staircase (one of the Seven Wonders of Wales), and that savage Welsh coastline where storms roll in like something out of a Brontë sister's imagination.
4. Dunnottar Castle, Aberdeenshire
This isn't a house. It's a fortress carved from storm and legend. Perched 160 feet above the North Sea on a flat-topped rock accessible only by a cliff-edge path, Dunnottar has been burned by Vikings, seized by William Wallace (who showed no mercy - the English garrison perished in flames), and besieged for eight months by Cromwell's army hunting for Scotland's Crown Jewels. The Honours were smuggled out by a minister's wife hiding them in her skirts - or lowered down cliffs to a woman collecting seaweed, depending on which story you believe. Either way, savage, cinematic, absolutely uncompromising. This is what Scottish defiance looks like in stone.
5. Broughton Hall, Yorkshire
Pure Brontëland. Just miles from Haworth and the purple heather moors that inspired Wuthering Heights, Broughton has been home to the Tempest family since 1097. The Red Drawing Room doubled as a location in the 1992 Wuthering Heights starring Ralph Fiennes. Behind its Georgian elegance lies 3,000 acres of that uniquely Yorkshire wildness - ancient woodland, windswept moorland, reservoirs for wild swimming, and those endless big skies. The hall itself is Grade I listed, all honey stone and crackling fires, where you can sleep in rooms named after their centuries-old character. Stately, spiritual, utterly windswept.
Learn more about Broughton Sanctuary
6. Belvoir Castle, Leicestershire
Originally built 1801-1832 after the previous castle was destroyed in the Civil War (and the one before that in the Wars of the Roses), Belvoir has been rebuilt three times but never broken - not too dissimilar to Heathcliff's undying love for Cathy, one could say. The 18-year-old 5th Duchess Elizabeth drove the reconstruction with such force that when fire destroyed much of James Wyatt's work in 1816, she simply rolled up her sleeves and carried on. The result is Gothic fantasy: battlements, painted ceilings, treasures spanning generations. Stand on the North Terrace and you can see three counties. This is power, beauty, and a thousand years of tangled family history written in stone.
If Wuthering Heights leaves you craving more than corsets and candlelight, let these houses pull you into the real thing.
