The original Bronte Society Museum opened on the first floor of the Yorkshire Penny Bank building at the top of Main Street in Haworth on 1st May 1895. It remained the venue for the museum until the Society took over the parsonage in 1928.
The building housed the village’s Mechanics Institute from 1877 before it was bought by the Yorkshire Penny Bank in 1894. They altered the entrance and first floor, and extended the building upwards with the addition of the turret. The framed rectangular space above the first floor window used to hold a stone engraved ‘Yorkshire Penny bank’. It was an antique shop in the 1960s and for many years, up until January 2019, it housed the Haworth Tourist Information Centre. It is now occupied by the Pretty Penny gift shop.
