Organic forces take over Brontë's land of secrets

North Lees, Derbyshire The site of the old smelting works felt wholly reclaimed, and as the rain ended the air filled with insects and soon after wrens

The rain started as I crossed the pasture above North Lees Hall, the model, it is widely accepted, for Thornfield Hall in Charlotte Bronti's novel Jane Eyre. It's a house the author visited more than once, staying with her friend Ellen Nussey in nearby Hathersage, and the intertwining of the names - thorn being an anagram of north and lee derived from the Anglo-Saxon for field - coupled with the detailed description Bronti gives, are persuasive.