Wuthering Heights filming locations, and Top Withens: the places behind the book and the films

Wuthering Heights filming locations are spread across Yorkshire, Kent and California, but the moor Emily Brontë actually wrote about is the one behind her own house in Haworth. Top Withens, a ruined farm about 5 km (3 miles) south-west of the village, is the place most people walk to. Emerald Fennell’s film, out in February 2026, sent a whole new wave of people looking for where it was made. So let’s sort it out: what the novel is about, what Top Withens really is, how to walk there (and to the Brontë Waterfall), and where each major film was shot.

Which Brontë sister wrote Wuthering Heights?

Emily Brontë. It’s her only novel, published in December 1847 under the name Ellis Bell. People mix the sisters up all the time, so for the record: Charlotte wrote Jane Eyre, Anne wrote Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Emily wrote this one. (She died a year after it came out, at 30, so she never knew what it would become.)

What is Wuthering Heights about?

Wuthering Heights is set on the moors of northern England between 1771 and 1802. It’s told by Mr Lockwood, who rents a house called Thrushcross Grange, and by Nelly Dean, a housekeeper who has worked for both families in the book.

Mr Earnshaw, who lives at the hilltop farm of Wuthering Heights, brings home an orphan boy he calls Heathcliff. Heathcliff and Earnshaw’s daughter Catherine grow up wild together on the moor. When Catherine marries the wealthy Edgar Linton of Thrushcross Grange instead of him, Heathcliff leaves, comes back rich, and spends the rest of his life taking revenge on the Earnshaws, the Lintons and their children. The second half follows that next generation, which is the half most films cut.

Emily explains the title in the first chapter:

Wuthering Heights is the name of Mr. Heathcliff’s dwelling. “Wuthering” being a significant provincial adjective, descriptive of the atmospheric tumult to which its station is exposed in stormy weather.

— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Chapter I (1847), Project Gutenberg

In other words: it’s windy up there. For the rest of the family’s books, see Books by the Brontë sisters.

Top Withens: is it the real Wuthering Heights?

Top Withens (also spelled Top Withins) is a ruined stone farmhouse on Haworth Moor, at about 1,377 feet (420 meters). It sits east of Withins Height, below Delf Hill, and both the Pennine Way and the Brontë Way pass it. The name comes from a dialect word for willows.

It’s famous because people have long said it was the model for the Earnshaws’ farm. That idea probably started with letters between Charlotte’s publisher, George Smith, and her friend Ellen Nussey, who were listing places that had inspired the novels. The Brontë Society put a plaque on the ruin in 1964, in answer to visitors’ questions. It says, fairly bluntly, that the buildings didn’t resemble the house in the novel even when they were whole, but that the site may have been in Emily’s mind when she wrote about the moorland setting.

So: the house isn’t Wuthering Heights. The bare hilltop with its wind-bent trees is very close to what Emily describes:

Pure, bracing ventilation they must have up there at all times, indeed: one may guess the power of the north wind, blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun.

— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Chapter I (1847), Project Gutenberg

People were still living there in the 1890s. On 18 May 1893 it was struck by lightning, which tore part of the roof off and broke about 30 windows, according to a local paper at the time.

How to walk to Top Withens from Haworth

There’s no road to Top Withens. You walk.

Route	Distance
Haworth to the Brontë Waterfall	About 2–2½ miles one way
Brontë Waterfall to Top Withens	About another 1–1¼ miles, uphill
Full round trip from Haworth	About 6–7½ miles, 3 hours or more
Penistone Hill, Brontë Waterfall and Top Withens loop	About 6 miles (10 km), a good 3 hours

Figures are from published walk guides, including the Bradford 2025 leaflet and Yorkshire Water’s Haworth Moor walk. Routes vary, so carry a map.

Is there a circular walk?

Yes, and it’s the better way to do it, because you don’t walk the same path twice. The usual loop:

1. From Haworth, head west over Penistone Hill.
2. Drop down to the Brontë Waterfall and the little stone bridge.
3. Cross the bridge and climb the steep bank on the far side, then follow the single path up to Top Withens.
4. Come back down through the village of Stanbury (there’s a pub there called, of course, the Wuthering Heights) and along the valley to Haworth.

That’s about 6 miles and a good three hours. The VisitHaworth route notes describe the same loop.

Practical points

• Boots, not sneakers. The path is stone-flagged in parts and peaty and wet in others. It gets boggy near Top Withens.
• The weather turns fast. Take a waterproof and a warm layer, even in summer.
• No facilities once you leave Haworth. Toilets are at the West Lane car park in the village.
• The signposts are in English and Japanese, because so many visitors come from Japan.

My honest take: if you’re only in Haworth for the day and want the Parsonage too, you probably can’t fit in the full walk without rushing one of them. Do the museum in the morning and save Top Withens for a day with nothing else planned.

Where is the Brontë Waterfall?

The Brontë Waterfall is on South Dean Beck (“beck” is the Yorkshire word for a stream), out on Haworth Moor about 2 to 2½ miles west of Haworth and about a mile south-west of Stanbury. It’s about 45 minutes on foot from Main Street, following the signs.

Set your expectations: it’s a small waterfall, and it’s at its best after heavy rain. The sisters walked out to it, which is the real reason to go.

Below the falls is the Brontë Bridge, a stone footbridge over the beck. The old one was swept away in a flash flood in May 1989, and in March 1990 an Army Lynx helicopter flew five gritstone slabs into the narrow valley so park rangers could rebuild the crossing. From the bridge you can turn back to Haworth or carry on uphill to Top Withens.

Other places linked to the novel

• Ponden Hall, a farmhouse near Stanbury, west of Haworth. It has traditionally been linked with Thrushcross Grange, though it’s closer in size and look to the Heights itself. The biographer Winifred Gérin thought it was the original of Anne Brontë’s Wildfell Hall.
• Ponden Kirk, a rock outcrop on the moor above Ponden, usually identified with Penistone Crags, where young Cathy longs to go:

The abrupt descent of Penistone Crags particularly attracted her notice; especially when the setting sun shone on it and the topmost heights, and the whole extent of landscape besides lay in shadow.

— Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Chapter XVIII (1847), Project Gutenberg

• High Sunderland Hall, near Halifax, where Emily taught at a school for six months. It’s been suggested as a model, but it was far too grand for a farmhouse, and it’s since been demolished.

Wuthering Heights filming locations, film by film

Year	Stars	Where it was filmed
1939	Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon	California. Mainly Thousand Oaks, including today’s Wildwood Regional Park, where a set of the Yorkshire moors was built in the Conejo Hills, about 50 miles from Hollywood.
1992	Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche	Yorkshire. East Riddlesden Hall near Keighley (the farmhouse), Broughton Hall near Skipton (Thrushcross Grange), Aysgarth Falls and the North York Moors, per IMDb.
2011	Directed by Andrea Arnold	Swaledale, North Yorkshire. Moor Close Farm at Muker (the Heights), Thwaite (Gimmerton), Cotescue Park at Coverham (Thrushcross Grange). Production office in Hawes.
2016	To Walk Invisible (about the Brontës, not the novel)	A replica of the Parsonage built on Penistone Hill, above Haworth.
2026	Margot Robbie, Jacob Elordi (dir. Emerald Fennell)	Yorkshire Dales, South and West Yorkshire, Kent, and studio sets in Hertfordshire. Details below.

Sources disagree on a few details, like exactly where the 1939 moor set stood. We’ve listed only what more than one source, or the production’s own listing, supports.

So yes, Hollywood built Yorkshire in California. (The 1939 Heathcliff never had to get his boots wet.)

Where was Wuthering Heights 2026 filmed?

Emerald Fennell’s film, released in February 2026, used real Yorkshire landscape for its exteriors and built most of its interiors. Reported locations:

• Swaledale and Arkengarthdale, Yorkshire Dales National Park. The misty moor exteriors. Reeth was the production’s base.
• Low Row, Swaledale. Key outdoor scenes.
• Booze Moor, Arkengarthdale. The tree where Heathcliff leaves Cathy on a branch. The tree was a prop, but you can visit the spot.
• Healaugh Crag (Crag Willas), near Reeth. The rock where Cathy sits after Heathcliff leaves.
• Bouldershaw Lane, Swaledale. Cathy in her wedding dress, on the way to marry Edgar Linton.
• Old Gang Mill, near Reeth. Real ruined buildings, used for wider shots of the Wuthering Heights estate.
• Surrender Bridge, on the Coast to Coast path, and the remote moorland of Reef Moor.
• Bridestones Moor, West Yorkshire, north of Todmorden. The standing rocks Cathy retreats to.
• Needle’s Eye, Wentworth, South Yorkshire. The stone arch where young Cathy and Heathcliff shelter from the rain.
• Knole House, Sevenoaks, Kent. The opening hanging scene, and Heathcliff’s wedding to Isabella.
• Studio sets in Hertfordshire. Thrushcross Grange, including its garden, was built entirely on set, as were most interiors. Reports differ on which studio.

The Ordnance Survey’s guide points out that Top Withens wasn’t a filming location for the 2026 film. Neither was Haworth. If you’ve come for the Margot Robbie scenery, you want Swaledale, in the northern Dales, not Haworth.

Kate Bush, the Emily Stone, and the music

Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights” was her debut single, released on 20 January 1978. It spent four weeks at number one in the UK, and she was the first woman to top the UK chart with a song she’d written herself.

Forty years later, in 2018, Bush wrote the words for the Emily Stone, one of four Brontë Stones put up on the moors between Thornton and Haworth for the Bradford Literature Festival. The others are by Carol Ann Duffy (Charlotte), Jackie Kay (Anne) and Jeanette Winterson. A nine-mile walk from Thornton to Haworth links all four.

Visiting Brontë country: what to pair with Top Withens

• Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Start or end the walk here. At current hours the museum is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so check the Brontë Society’s visit page before you plan your walking day around it.
• Skipton Castle and Bolton Abbey. About half an hour north of Haworth. Broughton Hall, the 1992 Grange, is near Skipton.
• Swaledale, for the 2011 and 2026 locations, is in the northern Dales, well north of Haworth. Make it a separate day.

If you like your film locations on cliffs, our Ireland guide to the Cliffs of Insanity covers another set of real cliffs the movies made famous.

What our trip does, and doesn’t

Our October 2027 Yorkshire trip spends a morning in Haworth: the Parsonage, the church, and a short walk onto Penistone Hill behind the house, weather allowing. We chose the short walk on purpose, because not everyone wants a three-hour moor hike in October (and the bogs don’t care how much you love the book). We don’t walk to Top Withens, and we don’t go to the Swaledale film locations. If those matter to you, they’re easy to add on your own before or after the trip.