Wayfinder 9: Wuther
Wayfinder 9: Wutherers on Penistone Hill, Matt Lumsden Photography
Walking directions: You have two choices here. You can continue along the stony path that cuts through West End Quarry, but it can be boggy in wet weather and there’s very a steep climb out at the end. For an easier route out, turn back to face the way you came and take the gentle slope that curves to the left. Follow it round, then cut across the car park to continue along a track that curves left towards the old cricket pavilion. Pass to the left of the pavilion to overlook a field surrounded by a drystone wall. This is the Wuthering field, and for this Wayfinder, you’ll have to imagine it filled with hundreds of dancers in red dresses.
About this Wayfinder
The Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever is an event held at locations around the world every July, where participants recreate the music video for Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights in a joyous celebration of her and Emily Brontë’s genius. In 2025, the event came home to the wily, windy moors of Haworth for the first time, to raise money for women’s charities and to protect this iconic landscape from a proposed wind farm development that threatens the blanket bog habitat and rare ground-nesting bird colonies that live here.
I joined the Haworth Wuther in 2025 and again in 2026, when our dancing appeared to summon a torrent of rain for the first time in weeks. It was cold and I got drenched and it was absolutely wonderful! This Wayfinder is about the ritual of Wuthering, with thanks to fellow Wutherers who shared their experiences and to all the volunteers who make it possible. Shout out to Kate Fox, whose 2025 poem 'We Are The Wutherers’ inspired this response from the soggier but no less magical sequel.
My poem draws parallels between the Wuthering Heights vocals and dance, and the lapwing which nests in upland habitats and performs impressive, tumbling displays in spring. In the book, these striking Red-listed birds are connected with Cathy Earnshaw, and she speaks of them while pulling feathers from a torn pillow.
Wutherers mid-flow, Steve Midgley Photography
