Three literary geniuses made their newborn squawks in the cramped main bedroom upstairs, but three major institutions have turned down the chance to buy and preserve the birthplace of Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bront‘.

Gwyn Headley, historian and head of Pavilions of Splendour, a specialist agency trying to find a white knight for the stone cottage, said: "It is much the most important heritage property we have ever been involved with, but all the letters say the same: no thanks."

English Heritage declined even to look round the building in Thornton, West Yorkshire, a village five miles from the tourist-inundated Haworth parsonage.

The National Trust inspected the property but confirmed last week that it was not interested. The Brontë Society, which runs the parsonage, has turned the offer down twice as beyond its resources.

"It's dispiriting," said Barbara Whitehead, a novelist and Brontë historian, who bought the birthplace three years ago when the previous owner, equally unsuccessful at attracting a preservation scheme, offered it for £100,000 with permission to divide it into two cottages. "I wanted to see it become a museum, and we bought an elegant shop opposite to be a cafe and visitor centre, but the local Brontë Birthplace Trust, which was going to run the place, ran out of steam as far as fundraising was concerned."

Mrs Whitehead, who is about to retire, has run a limited Brontë shrine - open four hours a day, Tuesday to Sunday in summer.

The sisters and their brother, Branwell, were born at the house between 1816 and 1820, when the Rev Patrick Brontë was vicar of Thornton. They moved to Haworth in 1820.