THE HOME of Charlotte Brontë’s closest confidante almost two centuries ago, inserted to celebrate next year is now ready for the future.

Mary Taylor lived at Red House in Gomersal when she frequently corresponded with Charlotte at the novelist’s home in Haworth.

Red House was run as a public museum until council funding costs forced its closure in December last year.

Now Brontë fans from all over the world can explore the historic rooms online using a virtual reality recreation completed before the closure.

To celebrate last year’s 200th anniversary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth, local company CONVRTS used pioneering scanning technology to depict the sumptuous house as it would have been during the Brontë era.

The experience can be viewed on any computer, tablet or mobile, or in full scale with a simple cardboard virtual reality headset.

Yorkshire-based virtual reality tour specialists CONVRTS volunteered their services to produce a 3D immersive scan of the entire museum, which was in a Grade II* listed 1830s cloth merchant’s home.

Joanne Catlow, Community Heritage and Education Manager at Kirklees Council, said: “We were delighted to be able to work with CONVRTS to create a permanent digital record of the historic house which will be still be able to be viewed in virtual reality.”

CONVRTS founder James Thwaite said the company felt it had to step in and offer its services after reading about Red House’s impending closure.

He said: “This is exactly what virtual reality should be used for – allowing people to visit places they wouldn’t ordinarily be able to, whether that is for geographical or historical reasons.

“We hope this stands as testament to all the hard work of those staff and volunteers who have worked at the museum.”

CONVRTS is a virtual reality content agency serving businesses and the public sector throughout the north of England.

Visit convrts.com/red-house-museum.html to view the Red House.