Kate Bush writes tribute to Emily Bronte for Yorkshire moors memorial

'Each sister being remembered by a stone in the enigmatic landscape where they lived and worked is a striking idea'

Kate Bush poses in her home in September 1978, the year her hit song 'Wuthering Heights' was released (Getty)

Kate Bush is contributing to a new monument to the Bronte sisters on the Yorkshire moors - 40 years after the release of her hit song "Wuthering Heights".

The singer has written an inscription for a stone that will be placed on a trail between the family home in Haworth and the sisters' birthplace, seven miles away in Thornton. Bush said it was "an honour, and in a way, a chance to say thank you to her".

"I am delighted to be involved in this project," she said. "Each sister being remembered by a stone in the enigmatic landscape where they lived and worked is a striking idea.

"Emily only wrote the one novel - an extraordinary work of art that has truly left its mark. To be asked to write a piece for Emily's stone is an honour and, in a way, a chance to say thank you to her."

She is one of four artists who have written messages about the sisters, alongside poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, who has dedicated a passage to Charlotte Bronte; poet Jackie Kay who will pay tribute to Anne, and author Jeanette Winterson, who will reflect on the Bronte legacy as a whole.

Winterson commented: "What I was growing up in Lancashire and roaming the hills in the rain, and feeling both passionate and misunderstood (like all teenagers, well, maybe some have better weather), I read the Brontes and felt their spirit stand by me.

"For me, reading is about connection - and connection that works across time too. Good books live in the present, regardless of when they were written. The Brontes showed me that hearts beat like mine, that the struggle to know who you are happens across time and generations, and gender.

"They showed me that writing needs the power of the personal behind it - but that somehow the story one person tells has to become a story many people can claim as their own. And the Brontes are women. As a woman I needed those ancestors, those guides. I still do."

The four stones will be unveiled as part of Bradford Literature Festival on 7 July, where Duffy, Kay and Winterson will appear to inaugurate and read their words. Festival director Syima Aslam said putting Emily's stone on the wild, exposed moors was an obvious choice.

"There was no other way of doing it," she said. "I remember a long time ago being laughed at by a friend as we were driving through the moors and I said, 'It's all so bleak, it reminds me of Wuthering Heights. She just looked at me and laughed.'"

The idea came from Michael Steward, who lives in Thornton, and said he has long-wanted "my village to receive recognition for its place in the Bronte story... it's fascinating to see the project come to fruition."