AN exhibition about Wuthering Heights is to be staged at one of Kirklees’ most popular tourist attractions.
Now the appeal has gone out to people in the area to help.
The event at Oakwell Hall in Birstall will be held to coincide with the TV screening later this year of a new adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic love story.
In the meantime, museum officers are appealing for the public to get in touch if they can offer any Wuthering Heights memorabilia for the exhibition.
The latest adaptation of Brontë’s novel was filmed partly at Oakwell Hall last summer by production company Mammoth Screen.
The Elizabethan manor house closed for four weeks for filming, rooms were redressed and car parks filled with film crews.
Stars on set included Sarah Lancashire, Andrew Lincoln – of Teachers and This Life fame – Band of Brothers actor Tom Hardy as Heathcliff and newcomer Charlotte Riley as his lover Catherine Earnshaw.
Wuthering Heights is one of the biggest productions Oakwell Hall has seen, despite the Nutter Lane museum being used as a film set in the past.
In the 1920s it was used for a silent movie version of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Shirley.
The hall was used as the basis for Fieldhead in Shirley by Brontë when she wrote the book in 1849.
Oakwell Hall also appeared as a location in ITV drama Lost In Austen last September.
The Wuthering Heights exhibition will include items connected to the filming of Wuthering Heights 2009, as well as memorabilia from other productions and books.
Museum officers have photos and props from the filming, scripts, the mock-up wooden panel where Heathcliff and Cathy carved their names.
But they are appealing to the public for more items – such as Kate Bush’s 1970 single Wuthering Heights, or memorabilia from the 1990s West End musical Heathcliff, starring Cliff Richard.
Anyone who wants to contribute items to the exhibition should contact Simon Skelling at Kirklees Museums and Galleries on 01484 223803.
