Stand-up comedian Arthur Smith took to lying down when he paid a call to the Bronte shrine at Haworth.

In his latest assignment for the BBC’s The One Show, he spent a night sleeping in the Reverend Patrick Bronte’s bedroom at Haworth Parsonage.

His billet was a reproduction of the bed the clergyman slept in every night until his death, aged 84, in 1861, and where his son Branwell died, aged 31, ruined by drugs and alcohol.

The comedian’s hope for a ghostly visitation never materialised – his sleep disturbed only by the chiming of the clock on the landing – the same one wound every night by Mr Bronte, said Bronte Parsonage Museum collections manager, Ann Dinsdale.

Mr Smith was at the Parsonage as part of his series of reports for the show on the homes of famous literary types.

He has also been at Thomas Hardy’s birthplace in Dorset and to the home of Jane Austen in Bath.

Before retiring for the night, he interviewed Bronte Parsonage Museum director Andrew McCarthy for the show, learning about how the three literary sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, spent their lives there.

Then, holding a candle, he went upstairs and got into the bed based on the painting by Branwell called Summoned From Sleep.

It shows Branwell in bed being approached by death in the form of a skeleton,” said Mrs Dinsdale.

Next morning Mr Smith got up and had porridge in the kitchen where the Brontes would have eaten.

“He was very funny and extremely interested in the Brontes, especially the poetry,” Mrs Dinsdale added.

The filming over, the comedian asked for a map of Haworth moors and went off alone towards Top Withens – reputed to be the location of Emily’s classic Gothic novel, Wuthering Heights.

His visit is expected to be shown on the topical weekday evening show, fronted by Adrian Childs and Christine Bleakley, next Thursday.

On Saturday, February 20, Bronte guardians are holding an open day when the Parsonage Museum will be thrown open free to people who live in the BD20, BD21, and BD22 postcode areas.