The seven millionth visitor to the shrine of the Brontes is expected this year.

Since the literary sisters' former home at Haworth's Parsonage opened to the public in 1928 millions of people from all around the world have descended on the Bradford district to discover more about the family.

And today a new exhibition exploring how Charlotte Bronte saw herself as "ugly" opens launching the start of the new season at the Parsonage Museum.

The seven millionth visitor - expected some time in July - will see Face to Face with Charlotte Bronte - set up in her bedroom, where she died in 1855, aged 39.

It explores how other people saw the writer of Jane Eyre both in paintings and drawings and how she saw herself, being less that five feet tall, as an ugly dwarf.

Among the images is one painted by JH Thompson, a Bradford artist and friend of her brother Branwell.

Ann Dinsdale, the museum's librarian, said: "We know she was terribly self-conscious about her appearance and that she saw herself as plain and unattractive.

"She once told Mrs Gaskell, her biographer, that she noticed that if anyone looked in her direction they were careful not to look in that direction again.

"She was paranoid about her appearance and that she was very small.

"When people came to visit Haworth after the sisters became famous, many wanted to know who was the prettiest, not who was the author of one of the best novels in the English language."

Charlotte actually drew a portrait of herself as an ugly dwarf next to a pretty image of her lifelong friend Ellen Nussey.

The only part of her appearance she was proud of were her dainty hands, which she liked to adorn with jewellery, some of which is in the exhibition, said Mrs Dinsdale.

The exhibition also includes a chalk drawing which the Bronte Society bought at auction in 2004 and which has been restored. And there is a faded and dark photograph of Charlotte, shot at the time she was married to the Haworth curate Arthur Bell and thought to have been taken as a possible illustration for one of her books.

The museum has undergone a complete refurbishment which has allowed staff to change the exhibits throughout the building.

It opened in 1928 and in its heyday in the early 1970s was attracting more than 200,000 visitors a year, partly because of the popularity of a television drama called The Brontes of Haworth.

In recent years just over 80,000 people have been touring the building annually and the seventh millionth is expected to cross the threshold in July.