A forgotten story of tragedy and heartache, which would have stirred the imagination of Emily Bronte, has been unearthed by school children.

It was discovered by youngsters at Oakworth primary school, Keighley, who came across the heart rending tale when working on their village heritage trail.

Guided by historian and writer Malcolm Hanson, they discovered the solitary gravestone of Emma Riley in a corner of Oakworth Church yard.

What they read on the epitaph gave them a new insight into the way people lived in 1860s Oakworth.

Emma died on September 10 1868, aged 32, and her epitaph tells how she was wooed by a "spoiler with fair words on his tongue", abandoned - possibly in pregnancy - before giving birth to a baby and then pining to her death.

"Emma is not even given a surname on the stone. It is only ten years later when her parents die and they are buried in the same grave that we find she is called Riley," said Mr Hanson.

"I was stunned when I read it," he says.

"It says so much about the prejudices of those times and how stigmatised woman like Emma were.

"It looks like she was cast out by her family and died of a broken heart.

"Emily Bronte would have found it fascinating. There is something Gothic about it - it reminds me so much of Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights.

"The children now want to uncover the life of this poor young woman. Perhaps we will be able to change after 140 years a few Victorian wrongs. She might even still have relatives here."

The next port of call will be Oakworth Church archives where they hope to find a record of Emma's death, he said.

Meanwhile, the children have been out cleaning up the gravestone which languishes in a far corner of the church yard.

They hope eventually to "adopt" it and look after its upkeep.

Katie Pickles, eight, of Oakworth, said. "It's a very sad story. The man who left her was mean and horrible."

"It wasn't very nice that they didn't put all her name on the stone," said nine year-old Sophie Marshall.

The Oakworth heritage trail, which will eventually become part of a published series of trails around Keighley, includes its links with the Bronte sisters of Haworth and the story of the making of the classic film, The Railway Children.

And it reveals Oakworth had its own nationwide claim to fame even before the Brontes.

At Lane Ends, in 1781, was born a baby, Isaac Butterfield, who was championed as the fattest child in the world.

At 20 months he was three feet tall and eight stones in weight and was showcased in London. He died at the age of 12.