High Sunderland Hall was a manor house, built circa 1600 just outside Halifax, West Yorkshire and demolished in 1951 after falling into dereliction.[1] The house is perhaps best-known for having supposedly provided Emily Brontë with her description of Wuthering Heights, the house in her eponymous novel,[2] although this is a matter for some debate (for example, Top Withens is commonly cited as a possible inspiration);[3] the building stood just a few miles from Law Hill House, Southowram, where she spent some time as a school mistress.[1]
The building was noted for its elaborate and grotesque carvings and Brontë's description of Heathcliff's wild moorland home has unmistakable echoes of the old house. In Chapter I, Brontë writes:[1]
| “ | Before passing the threshold I paused to admire a quantity of grotesque carving lavished over the front and especially about the principal door, above which, among the wilderness of crumbling griffins and shameless little boys, I detected the date 1500 ... | ” |