THE DISCOVERY of lurid wallpaper which decorated a North Yorkshire stately hall in the 1800s, has thrown light on its inspiration for Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

One of history’s most significant authors visited Norton Conyers, near Ripon, in 1839 when she worked as a governess for a family who lived just outside Harrogate.

The home left such an impression on her that she drew on it heavily in her descriptions of the fictitious Thornfield Hall, where Jane Eyre met Mr Rochester.

Experts believe its legend of a mad woman who had been shut away in a remote room in the attic, known only as “Mad Mary”, gave Charlotte Bronte her inspiration for Mrs Rochester and her insanity.

The writer had accompanied the children on a trip to the hall, which was then owned by the hall’s extravagant, fast-living owner, the 7th baronet. He was the great, great grandfather of its current owner Sir James Graham.

Major restoration work has been carried out at the home over the past few years. But while the hall was being redecorated, Sir James Graham and Lady Halina Graham discovered the wallpaper which would have decorated Norton Conyers when Charlotte Bronte visited.

The wildly patterned moiré paper is covered in red and orange swirls and the couple said it would have given the hall an uneasy feeling and probably was the inspiration for the unsettling Thornfield Hall.

Sir James said: “It’s really, really overpowering. Not just its colour, but also it’s sort of “restless”. Thornfield Hall was a rather restless place and we thought that would have appealed to Charlotte.”

The Bronte Society say the author’s visit to Norton Conyers was recalled by her friend Ellen Nussey.

Julie Akhurst, publicity officer for the Bronte Society said Ellen Nussey recalled Charlotte Bronte describing the home and “recalled the impression made on Charlotte by the story of the mad woman confined in the attic”.

Ms Akhurst added that a recent redecoration of Charlotte Bronte’s home has also just revealed some similar “very hectic patterned” wallpaper.

“Our recent £60,000 forensically researched redecoration scheme showed that the Parsonage itself had a couple of very hectic patterned wallpapers,” she said.

“They’re not at all what modern people might have expected Charlotte Bronte would have on her walls, yet we now know that she did. The strong colours and violent patterns certainly can’t have helped someone already feeling disorientated.”

Lady Graham added: “She does describe the hall of Thornfield Hall in great detail in Jane Eyre and it’s what we see in this house. Discovering this did make us feel closer to 1839 when she was here.”

She added that their own redecoration of the hall in Norton Conyers has now inadvertently brought the hall full circle, as they discovered they had repainted it in the same shade of light grey as their ancestors in 1780, which lay beneath the 7th baronet’s unsettling wallpaper.