Jane Austen's House Museum | Home Discover Britain's most-loved writer Jane Austen's House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire is the only house where Jane lived and wrote which is open to the public as a museum. Jane Austen's House Museum is currently closed to the public. We are now closed from 2 January until the end of February, including weekends, while we prepare the House for the bicentenary commemorations of Jane Austen's life. The Museum will reopen on 3 March 2017. Jane Austen Lives on in Chawton @MiriamWakerly #LLm #community So many people from different walks of life help to keep a village buoyant and thriving! We have looked at fundraisers, a pub landlord, a village baker, an allotment chief, a thespian who saved a village hall, a small library and a village centre manager. Now for something different! What if a special person puts down incredibly strong roots in a small village, but is no longer there? What if that person has died but the village would not be same now, had they not once lived there?

Well, I am talking about the village of Chawton, close to Alton, in Hampshire and, of course, Jane Austen, beloved around the world. Even those who have not read her novels, probably will have seen films of them and if they have not heard of her must be living on another planet. In 1775 Jane was born in Steventon, Hampshire, where she lived for 25 years, then Bath, Somerset, for five years and Southampton for two more, finally settling in Chawton, thanks to her brother Edward who, through inheritance, owned the village. He was the third of six brothers and adopted by fourth cousin, Thomas Knight, whose estate he inherited, including part of Kent, a lot of Hampshire near Winchester, and Steventon. Seems fair that he should have provided for his mother and sisters, after the death of their father, since they would have otherwise been homeless! This gave Jane security, independence and freedom to write. Jane Austen House Museum So how does her legacy live on in the village?

Visitors, her fans, flock to the village to see the house where she lived and wrote her six famous novels in about seven years, and follow the trail, ‘the literary walk’, where she would have walked to post a letter. In many ways the village is unchanged, with some of the thatched houses and other older buildings standing just as they stood when Jane might have walked past them. The number of residents – 300 – is about the same as it then was, they just lived in fewer houses! Although there were some mansions, most village homes would have housed a large family under one very small roof. A cottage Jane would have passed on her way to Chawton House People visit the Jane Austen House Museum , and also Chawton House, where Edward’s descendants lived until 10 years ago, and which is now a library and learning centre focused on early women’s writers. When the village is full of tourists in peak summer season, locals probably regard her notoriety with mixed feelings, understandably. But on the whole the residents must benefit hugely from the prosperity she brings to what would have been a little known hamlet.

There is a certain cachet to living there, reflected in property prices – although there is nowhere you can buy a pint of milk! ‘Copy of painting of Chawton House c 1741 ©Mellichamp Events relate to Jane Austen, her books, characters and lifestyle in so many creative, imaginative ways, with themes such as bonnets, lace, food, music … Really there is no room here to list them all, so do check out the website . They all tend to bring people in from outside the village. The welcoming pub opposite the museum, The Greyfriar, naturally does very well from Austen followers. I was told that Robert Knight, a living relative of Jane, frequents The Greyfriar. Imagine that! On a busy day they may serve lunch to 100 people or more! I have enjoyed lunches there with the Society of Authors – a fitting venue for a meeting of writers. Its global clientele have followed a tradition of pinning up samples of their currency above the bar. The Greyfriar Pub and Cassandra’s Cup have visitors from all over the world thanks to Jane Austen!

Next to the pub is a very pretty café, Cassandra’s Cup – named after Jane’s mother and sister, and this has its own tradition of collecting non-matching cups, suspended from the ceiling! People in both these establishments said that, had it not been for Jane Austen, they simply would not be there. The village does not exploit tourism as much as you might expect. For example, there are few, if any B&Bs or hotels there, the nearest being in Alton. Naturally, the village residents do not need to keep going back to see Jane’s House, but they are offered free entry to the many related events held at the House and the Library. For the Jane Austen Society’s AGM a marquee is erected and this is left up for a couple of days for a village event. Parish meetings and pilates classes are held in the Learning Centre at Jane Austen’s House. The villagers are also devotées of Chawton Open Gardens and the Scarecrow Trail, which in 2015 featured characters from children’s books and in 2017 will be on the theme of Horrible Histories. The Open Gardens event is held every other year.

There is also the 5th of November bonfire and a village fête in August. So yes, Jane Austen does help to bring the community together in the village! And in such style! Jane Austen's Biography: Life (1775-1817) and Family Austen family genealogical charts Jane Austen was born December 16th, 1775 at Steventon , Hampshire , England (near Basingstoke). She was the seventh child (out of eight) and the second daughter (out of two), of the Rev. George Austen , 1731-1805 (the local rector , or Church of England clergyman), and his wife Cassandra, 1739-1827 ( née Leigh ). (See the silhouettes of Jane Austen's father and mother , apparently taken at different ages.) He had a fairly respectable income of about £600 a year, supplemented by tutoring pupils who came to live with him, but was by no means rich (especially with eight children), and (like Mr. Bennet in ) couldn't have given his daughters much to marry on .

More than one reader has wondered whether the childhood of the character Catherine Morland in Jane Austen's novel Northanger Abbey might not reflect her own childhood, at least in part -- Catherine enjoys "rolling down the green slope at the back of the house" and prefers cricket and baseball to girls' play. In 1783, Jane and her older sister Cassandra went briefly to be taught by a Mrs. Cawley (the sister of one of their uncles), who lived first in Oxford and then moved to Southampton . They were brought home after an infectious disease broke out in Southampton . In 1785-1786 Jane and Cassandra went to the Abbey boarding school in Reading , which apparently bore some resemblance to Mrs. Goddard's casual school in Emma . (Jane was considered almost too young to benefit from the school, but their mother is reported to have said that "if Cassandra's head had been going to be cut off, Jane would have hers cut off too".) This was Jane Austen's only education outside her family. Within their family, the two girls learned drawing, to play the piano, etc.

(See "Accomplishments" and Women's Education .) Austen family genealogical charts Jane Austen enjoyed social events, and her early letters tell of dances and parties she attended in Hampshire , and also of visits to London , Bath , Southampton etc., where she attended plays and such. There is a famous statement by one Mrs. Mitford that Jane was the "the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers" (however, Mrs. Mitford seems to have had a personal jealousy against Jane Austen, and it is hard to reconcile this description with the Jane Austen who wrote The Three Sisters before she was eighteen). There is little solid evidence of any serious courtships with men. In 1795-6, she had a mutual flirtation with Thomas Lefroy (an Irish relative of Jane Austen's close older friend Mrs. Anne Lefroy). On January 14th and 15th 1796, when she was 20, she wrote (somewhat sarcastically), in a letter to Cassandra : "Tell Mary that I make over Mr.

Heartley and all his estate to her for her sole use and benefit in future, and not only him, but all my other admirers into the bargain wherever she can find them, even the kiss which C. Powlett wanted to give me, as I mean to confine myself in future to Mr. Tom Lefroy, for whom I do not care sixpence. Assure her also, as a last and indisputable proof of Warren's indifference to me, that he actually drew that gentleman's picture for me, and delivered it to me without a sigh. Friday. -- At length the day is come on which I am to flirt my last with Tom Lefroy, and when you receive this it will be over. My tears flow at the melancholy idea." However, it was always known that he couldn't afford to marry Jane ( see "Money and Marriage" ). (Many years later, after he had become Chief Justice of Ireland, he confessed to his nephew that he had had a "boyish love" for Jane Austen.) A year later, Mrs. Lefroy (who had disapproved of her nephew Tom's conduct towards Jane) tried to fix Jane Austen up with the Rev.

Samuel Blackall, a Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, but Jane wasn't very interested. In late 1800 her father, who was nearly 70, suddenly decided to retire to Bath (which would not have been Jane Austen's choice), and the family moved there the next year. During the years in Bath , the family went to the sea-side every summer, and it was while on one of those holidays that Jane Austen's most mysterious romantic incident occurred. All that is known is what Cassandra told various nieces, years after Jane Austen's death, and nothing was written down until years after that. While the family were staying somewhere on the coast (probably in south Devonshire, west of Lyme ), Jane Austen met a young man who seemed to Cassandra to have quite fallen in love with Jane; Cassandra later spoke highly of him, and thought he would have been a successful suitor. According to Caroline "They parted -- but he made it plain he should seek them out again"; however, shortly afterwards they instead heard of his death!

There is no evidence as to how seriously this disappointment affected Jane Austen, but a number of people have wondered whether or not Jane Austen's 1817 novel Persuasion takes place in Lyme . A more clearly-known incident occurred on December 2nd. 1802 , when Jane Austen and Cassandra were staying with the Bigg family at Manydown, near Steventon . Harris Bigg-Wither, who was six years younger than herself, proposed to Jane, and she accepted, though she did not love him ( see "Marriage and the Alternatives" ). However, the next day she thought better of it, and she and Cassandra showed up unexpectedly at Steventon (where their brother James was now the clergyman), insisting they be taken out of the neighbourhood to Bath the next day. This was socially embarrassing, but her heart does not seem to have been seriously affected -- Mr. Bigg-Withers, though prosperous, was "big and awkward". Notoriously, none of Jane Austen's letters to Cassandra from June 1801 to August 1804, in which she probably would have alluded to these incidents, have been preserved.

In the end, Jane Austen (like Cassandra ), never married. In 1803 Jane Austen actually sold (then titled Susan ) to a publisher , for the far-from-magnificent sum of £10; however, the publisher chose not to publish it (and it did not actually appear in print until fourteen years later ). It was probably toward the end of the Bath years that Jane Austen began , but this novel was abandoned in fragmentary form. In January 1805 her father died. As would have been the case for the Bennets in Austen family genealogical charts In 1806 they moved from Bath , first to Clifton, and then, in autumn 1806, to Southampton . Two years later, Jane remembered ( in a letter to Cassandra ) with "what happy feelings of Escape!" she had left Bath . Southampton was conveniently near to the navy base of Portsmouth and the naval brothers Frank and Charles . In 1809 Jane Austen, her mother, sister Cassandra , and Martha Lloyd moved to Chawton , near Alton and Winchester , where her brother Edward provided a small house on one of his estates.

This was in Hampshire , not far from her childhood home of Steventon . Before leaving Southampton , she corresponded with the dilatory publisher to whom she had sold Emma . Her brother Henry , who then conveniently lived in London , often acted as Jane Austen's go-between with publishers, and on several occasions she stayed with him in London to revise proof-sheets. In October 1813, one of the Prince Regent's physicians was brought in to treat an illness that Henry was suffering from; it was through this connection that Jane Austen was brought into contact with Mr. Clarke . At Steventon she and Cassandra had had a private "dressing room" next to their bedroom (in the later years, after their brothers had mainly moved out), which she used to write her Juvenilia and early versions of her first three novels in relative privacy. At Chawton , she didn't have any such study, and James Edward tells the story of the famous creaking door , which Jane Austen requested not be fixed, since it gave her warning of any approaching visitors, so that she could hide her manuscript before they came into the room.

In addition to her literary work, she often visited her brothers and their families, and other relatives and friends, and they sometimes came to Southampton or Chawton . She had a reputation for being able to keep young children entertained, and was also attached to her oldest nieces Fanny and Anna . In a letter of October 7th 1808 , she wrote about her niece Fanny : "I found her... just what you describe, almost another Sister, -- & could not have supposed that a neice would ever have been so much to me". In a letter of October 30th 1815 she wrote to her young niece Caroline , after her sister Anna's first child had been born: "Now that you are become an Aunt, you are a person of some consequence & must excite great interest whatever you do.

I have always maintained the importance of Aunts as much as possible, & I am sure of your doing the same now." In a letter of November 6th 1813 (when she was 37 years old) she wrote: "By the bye, as I must leave off being young, I find many Douceurs in being a sort of chaperon [at dances], for I am put on the Sofa near the Fire & can drink as much wine as I like." A few days earlier she had written , "I bought a Concert Ticket and a sprig of flowers for my old age." ( in August 1815, and finished it in August 1816 -- although during 1816 she was becoming increasingly unwell . In early 1816 her brother Henry's business went bankrupt; Edward lost £20,000. In early 1817 she started work on another novel, Sanditon , but had to give it up in March. On April 27th she made her will (leaving almost everything to Cassandra ), and on May 24 she was moved to Winchester for medical treatment.

She died there on Friday, July 18th 1817, aged 41. It was not known then what had caused her death, but it seems likely that it was Addison's disease. (See also Cassandra's letters to Fanny Knight announcing Jane's death .) She was buried in Winchester Cathedral on July 24th 1817 (at that time, so we are told, women did not usually attend funerals -- three years afterwards, Victoria's mother was not allowed to attend her husband's funeral -- so Cassandra was not present). Read the light poem that Jane Austen wrote soon before her death . The inscription on her grave in the cathedral has become rather notorious in recent years. First, because it lays such emphasis on her "sweetness" and Christian humility, even though it is rather clear from Jane Austen's novels (let alone her letters ) that she was no Fanny Price . However, this could well be simply the conventional (and somewhat empty) eulogistic pieties of the day, heightened by Henry Austen's mid-life crisis.

The more serious question is why there was no mention at all of her writings (except in the somewhat oblique allusion to "the extraordinary endowments of her mind"). In memory of formerly Rector of Steventon in this County . She departed this Life on the 18th July 1817, aged 41, after a long illness supported with the patience and the hopes of a Christian. The benevolence of her heart, the sweetness of her temper, and the extraordinary endowments of her mind obtained the regard of all who knew her, and the warmest love of her intimate connections. Their grief is in proportion to their affection they know their loss to be irreparable, but in the deepest affliction they are consoled by a firm though humble hope that her charity, devotion, faith and purity have rendered her soul acceptable in the sight of her REDEEMER. Portraits of Jane Austen, etc. There have been only two authentic surviving portraits of Jane Austen, both by her sister Cassandra , one of which is a back view!

(A poor-quality greycale JPEG and a poor-quality color JPEG of this are available.) The other is a rather disappointing pen and wash drawing made about 1810 (a somewhat manipulated JPEG of this original sketch is available). The main picture of Jane Austen referenced at this site (JPEG) is a much more æsthetically pleasing adaptation of the same portrait, but should be viewed with caution, since it is not the original (for a more sentimentalized Victorian version of this portrait, see this image , and for an even sillier version of the portrait, in which poor Jane has a rather pained expression and is decked out in cloth-of-gold or something, see this image -- for some strange reason, it is this last picture which has been frequently used to illustrate popular media articles on Jane Austen). Here's the silliest version of this portrait ever . ). See also a deliberately contemporized (but not silly) version of the portrait by Amy Bellinger. The silhouette included at the top of these files (if you have a graphic browser) is not actually known with certainty to be Jane Austen's.

Here is another silhouette said to be of Jane Austen , taken from The Illustrated Letters of Jane Austen edited by Penelope Hughes-Hallett (formerly published as My Dear Cassandra: The Letters Of Jane Austen ). Silhouettes of Jane Austen's father and mother (that of her father apparently taken at a rather earlier age), a silhouette of Cassandra , and Cassandra's portrait of their niece Fanny Knight (JPEG) are also available. In 1994, another portrait, claimed to be of Jane Austen, has been discovered among Mr. Clarke's papers, and published in a limited edition (this portrait was reportedly printed in the Daily Telegraph Jane Austen - Biography, Life Timeline, Books, Movies, Quotes and Fashion Jane Austen is a world renowned English author and, despite her having lived centuries ago, she commands a legion of fans around the world numbering in the millions today. Her timeless works - numbering just six completed novels - have been turned into a plethora of motion pictures, television shows and modern adaptations at a regular pace in addition to being translated into multiple languages that help her stories surpass cultural boundaries. These six works have gone on to become the model formula for the romance stories of today.

Jane Austen remains as popular as ever and is revered as much as any literary figure in the history of the English language. This site is a testament to her works, her life and her particular viewpoint concerning love, loyalty and relationships during the time she lived. JANE AUSTEN The Places of Jane Austen Jane Austen Sights The Vyne, near Basingstoke A 16 c. house with many alterations over the years, with collections of furniture, paintings and ornaments. There is a long pannelled gallery with heldary carvings related to the Chute family who lived here for over 350 years. We know that Jane Austen came to dances here. Atractive gardens and grounds include an ornamental lake, and one of the earliest summer houses. Open mid-March to end October, not Th. or Fri. The Wheatsheaf on the old London road This is an old coaching inn south of Steventon, where horses were changed on the way to and from London. Stage coaches carried the mail, and Jane Austen walked to here to send and receive her letters. The reciepent paid for the mail, as this was before the invention of postage stamps.

The main building is much unchanged on the outside, and inside we can see the low ceilings, original beams and fire place. The old stables are now a restaurant, and at the side is a modern Premier Inn hotel. From the main road you can take a picture which will be much as Jane saw it. Steventon Church It is over 2 miles walk over Hampshire's rolling countryside from the London road to Steventon. With simple leather shoes, long skirts and on unmade roads, the return walk would be quite an effort. The village is small, scattered and rural, the birthplace of Jane Austen (1775), whose family lived at the rectory (demolished) for 25 years. In the church there are three tablets to the family, and family graves in the churchyard. The church is over 600 years old and very simple inside and out, with some medieval painting on the walls. The wind vane is shaped like a quill pen. A yew tree by the West entrance is over 900 years old. The rectory was large and had 7 bedrooms. Outside there were fields where Mr.

Austen farmed and his wife grew potatoes (at that time quite an innovation), formal gardens with a turf walk, sundial, strawberry beds, and a grassy bank down which the young Jane possibly enjoyed rolling as a child, like Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey. There was also a carriage sweep, and a barn used for private theatricals except in winter, when the dining room had to suffice. Jane’s very full social life at Steventon provided her with much of the material for her novels, and most of her long-life friendships were cemented during her time at Steventon. Here she wrote Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, although they were not published at that time. Her father offered Pride and Prejudice to a publisher in 1797 who turned it down without reading it. Cassandra and Jane attended many dances at nearby large houses, some of which are still standing today. The most notable is the Vyne, a National Trust property, near Basingstoke. Jane also attended social gatherings in Basingstoke at the Assembly Rooms. Barclays Bank in the Market Place in Basingstoke stands where the Assembly rooms used to be.

A plaque on the wall of the bank commemorates Jane. She liked shopping, and is known to have gone shopping in Andover, Alton, Alreford, Basingstoke, Whitchurch and Overton during the years she lived at Steventon. Jane spent the first 25 years of her life in Steventon, before the family moved to Bath in Somerset because her father wanted to retire there. Bath provided scenes for some of her books, but she did not embark on any of her novels during the five tears she lived here. Ashe Village A few miles north of Steventon is the village of Ashe, where Jane's father was also the rector and Jane visited her friends the Lefroy's at Ashe House. From the farmyard we can see a circular pond with central island; this is the source of the River Test, which we can follow on pretty country lanes through little villages of 16c. thached cottages. Upper Test Valley The chalk hills around Basingstoke soak up the rains, and filter the water all year into small streams going South, which combine to make the River Test and its tributaries.

The official source is a lake with a circular island which can be viewed from a lane by the old church at Ashe. The river runs clear and fast in shallow channels, often breaking into several streams in its gentle valley. It is the finest trout fishing river in the South of England. The prettiest part of the valley is the upper part, from Stockbridge to Whitchurch. There are many old thatched cottages, and in some places the land in the valley is common grazing and has never been cultivated, and is a haven for wild-life. The Mayfly near Longparish is a lovely riverside pub with great lunch-time food. Lyme Regis Lyme Regis is a charming seaside town, barely commercialised, with many fine old buildings in its steep narrow streets. Its most famous feature is the great breakwater known as the Cobb, immortalised by local author John Fowles in his novel The French Lieutenant's Woman. Jane Austen was another author who enjoyed Lyme Regis. The coastline is a notable hunting ground for palaeontologists, with some famous local fossil finds, such as the ichthyosaurus found by Mary Anning in the early 19th century.

Southampton Southampton developed along the waterfront between the mouths of the Test and the Itchen, Hampshire's two main rivers. Ideally located at the head of Southampton Water, it was a major port throughout the Middle Ages. In the 19th century, and until well into the 1960s, it flourished as a passenger port able to accommodate the largest liners, and as an aircraft-building centre; Spitfires were produced here. Heavy wartime bombing and post-war redevelopment destroyed much of the city. However, there are some remarkable survivals, including stretches of the town walls, Bargate (a fine medieval gatehouse), the 15th-century Merchants' Hall, and Bugle Street. The Wool House, built in about 1400 as a warehouse, now houses the Southampton Maritime Museum; next door is the mid-19th century Italianate Yacht Club. Jane Austen stayed here with a brother in a house in Castle Square, beside the mediaeval sea walls. There is now a pub on the site of the house. We know that Jane attended dances in the ballroom of the Dolphin Hotel. It has the largest unsupported bay windows in the country.

Winchester Capital of Wessex from the time of Alfred, and capital of all England from the 10th century until the Norman Conquest, this is one of the most historic cities in the country, crammed with medieval and later buildings. The huge cathedral is the second on the site, Norman and a mixture of later medieval styles, and is the second longest in Europe - a beautiful building, full of superb fittings including the best set of medieval chantry chapels in the country and early 14th-century wooden quire stalls of the highest quality. The Triforum gallery has a very good display on the buildings. The statue of William Walker the diver records his dangerous work replacing the footings. The small cathedral close has a medieval pilgrim hall and other attractive corners. The 14th-century Kingsgate has the little Church of St Swithun above. Jane Austen died in College Street, and is buried in the cathedral. The plaque to her makes no mention of her writings. Winchester College, the famous public school, still inhabits the original medieval courts, with chapel and hall. The ruins of the medieval bishop's palace, Wolvesey Palace (English Heritage) are extensive.

The town itself is dense, full of Georgian brick houses. One of the best is the Royal Hampshire Regiment Museum, and there are four more military museums in Peninsula Barracks and the City Museum in the pretty little square. Opposite the decorative Victorian guildhall (with exhibition gallery) is a huge statue of King Alfred (1901). The City Mill (National Trust) of 1774 has a pretty little garden. The 13th-century great hall is the only surviving part of the castle, and one of the finest medieval halls in the country, displaying the so-called King Arthur's table, an early medieval fake, and with a little `medieval garden' attached. Westgate, part of the medieval city walls, has a museum above. See also St Cross. Chawton, the Jane Austen house Revered as the village where Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life, and wrote three of her novels. A single street of brick houses and cottages, with the Austen house on the corner, only a fair-sized village house. Many relics and some rooms looking much as in her time. Everything in the House is very well annotated, and it takes a while to see it all.

Recent renovation has added a kitchen in 18 c. style and a new souvenir shop. Everything in the garden is as of Jane's time, with herbs and plants used for cooking, medical purposes and dying clothing. Chawton House (not open), where one of her brothers lived, is also little changed. It is just beyond the church, where we can see her mother's and Casandra's graves. The original church was damaged by fire and re-built in the 19 c. Bath Bath owes its prosperity to its hot springs, unique in Britain, and first capitalised upon by the Romans, who constructed a great bathing complex here. In AD 973 Bath Abbey was the site of the coronation of Edgar, first king of All England. The present abbey, dating from the 15th century, is famous for its magnificent fan vaulting and monuments. During the 18th century the presence of the flamboyant Richard “Beau” Nash helped to make Bath one of England’s most fashionable towns, while the Palladian architecture of John Wood and his son turned it into one of the country’s most coherent and beautiful cityscapes.

Today the Roman Baths Museum houses the finest Roman remains in Britain, and Bath’s Georgian masterpieces - the Pump Rooms, the Assembly Rooms, the Circus, the Royal Crescent, and the Florentine-style Pulteney Bridge - remain in a marvelous state of preservation. The town is also a major cultural centre with many excellent museums. Bath is the most elegant town in the country, with acres of handsome Georgian buildings in the creamy orange local stone and surrounded by small green hills. The town has always been based on its natural hot springs, the largest producing a million litres a day of red-stained hot water. The Romans built their baths around the spring, with a temple dedicated to Minerva and the Iron Age god Sulis, providing a mixture of physical healing and spiritual refreshment, doubtless, as later, relieved with more social amusements. The Roman baths were rediscovered in the later 19th century, and can be seen along with the little medieval King’s Bath, and displays of finds which include Roman sculpture and Roman curses. Medieval Bath was small, with a big monastery, whose large and handsome early 16th-century church survives as Bath Abbey, fan-vaulted and with a famous west front.

The 17th-century town was promoted as a spa, and really took off from 1725, becoming the most fashionable resort in the country. Present-day Bath is the stylish town created for those who came to bathe and to drink the water in the Georgian period. Two people heavily influenced the town: ‘Beau’ Nash, the official Master of ceremonies for 50 years who made the resort genteel, and the architect John Wood who designed many areas of Bath including the Circus (1754), the large circular terrace. His son designed the Royal Crescent (no 1 is open to the public) and the Assembly Rooms in the 1760’s, while Robert Adam produced Pulteney Bridge at the same time. Other notable buildings include the Guildhall (1776) and the Pump Room (1789), but fine as these individual buildings are, it is Bath as a whole which impresses, miles of Georgian houses, mostly in terraces, looking much as they did when Jane Austen or Gainsborough visited. The magnificent Royal Crescent was built by John Wood the Younger between 1767 and 1774.

This glorious terrace of 30 classically inspired, three-storey houses in glowing, golden Bath stone is often claimed to be the most majestic street in Britain. No. 1 Royal Crescent has been superbly restored and furnished to reflect the golden 18th-century age of Bath when aristocrats, such as the Duke of York, lived here. Royal Victoria Park (laid out from 1830) and the Botanic Gardens in the north-west area of the city, are fine Victorian additions to the town, although by then it had ceased to be fashionable. Best view of the city is from the wooded ridge to the south. Two of Jane Austen’s novels, `Northanger Abbey’ and `Persuasion’, are partly set in Regency Bath and give a good picture of the social life then, as do the Assembly Rooms and the Museum of Costume. Today Bath attracts visitors from all over the world, and has masses of smart shops. The annual summer music festival holds concerts many of the Georgian buildings, and the Holbourne of Menstrie Museum (in a hotel of 1796) and the Victoria Art Gallery have temporary exhibitions as well as their permanent displays.

The Building of Bath Museum has details of the construction of the Georgian town. Bath is always bustling and always beautiful. Dining with Jane Austen Dining with Jane Austen A Culinary Adventure Through the Author's Life and Works “Caroline, Anna & I have been devouring some cold Souse, & it would be difficult to say which enjoyed it most—” 14, 15 January 1796 In Jane Austen's Own Words In her letters, we see Jane Austen taking great pleasure in food, a passion unequaled by her major heroines except perhaps Emma. All together, these letters are the nearest record we have to a food diary. To prepare the food Jane Austen mentioned, research was conducted in Chawton, England with two cookbooks close to the Austen family circle: Martha Lloyd’s Household Book and The Knight Family Cookbook. Janeites may already be familiar with Martha Lloyd’s Household Book of nearly 100 handwritten “receipts” and a number of home remedies collected by Jane Austen’s intimate and longtime friend. Martha Lloyd lived with the Austen women at Chawton Cottage and, years after Jane’s death, married her widowed brother Frank.

Visitors can see the book safely encased at Jane Austen’s House Museum. Recreating recipes from this book may be as close as one can get to dining at the cottage with Jane Austen. © Jane Austen's House Museum Research has also been conducted with The Knight Family Cookbook at Chawton House Library. This is collection of 434 handwritten “receipts” from the relations that adopted Jane Austen’s eldest brother Edward. This cookbook manuscript bears an inscription from Thomas Knight: “This book I brought from Chawton and gave it to my sister Mrs. J. Knight, on whose death it was returned.” --T K 1793 © Chawton House Library Unless a more relevant artifact is discovered, recreating recipes from this book is the nearest way to experiencing the dishes Jane Austen may have enjoyed at the family estates of Godmersham and Chawton House. The foundation of this project was formed by cataloging the food references in Jane Austen’s letters, a process greatly assisted by the works of Deirdre Le Faye and Maggie Lane. Also cataloged were the 99 recipes from the Martha Lloyd’s Household Book and the 434 recipes from The Knight Family Cookbook.

The material from these three sources was then cross-referenced. Where the content intersected is where the cooking began. In addition to creating the foods referenced in Jane Austen’s letters, we’ll be cooking our way through her major novels, fragments and juvenalia. The ultimate goal of this work is to publish the book Dining with Jane Austen in late 2016 or early 2017. Publication will coincide with the 200th anniversary of the Jane Austen's death. Click HERE to learn how you can help. About the Author Julienne Gehrer is a Life Member of the Jane Austen Society of North America and a member of the Metropolitan Kansas City Region. She is a retired Editorial Director for Hallmark Cards, Inc. where she developed products for over 30 years. Julienne is the author of two books: In Season: Cooking Fresh From the Kansas City Farmers' Market and Love Lore: Symbols, Legends and Recipes for Romance. She is the creator of three board games including Pride and Prejudice—the Game. Julienne has spoken at several JASNA conferences and regional events on several topics including, Did Jane Austen Prefer a Plain Dish to a Ragout?

and Jane Austen and 18th Century Cooking Wisdom. Although she admits a preference for modern kitchens, Julienne has cooked period foods over the open hearth of the 1858 John Wornall House Museum. Jane Austen At Home & In Print: Part 2 - Chawton, England - Quillcards Blog Jane Austen At Home & In Print: Part 2 – Chawton, England January 23, 2012 Blooms At The Window - Jane Austen In Chawton A Sweet View It was a sweet view – sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive. – from ‘Emma’, Jane Austen’s novel published in 1815 Jane Austen had lived for six years in this redbrick 18th century house called Chawton Cottage when she had her character Emma air these observations about the estate belonging to the character Mr. Knightley in her novel Emma. My husband David took this photo when we visited Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire in southern England last summer.

So I hope you enjoy this dose of summer as you read this in the depth of winter! It is often said that authors write best about the realities that they know, and so I think that Jane might well have been referring to her own home located in the quiet English countryside when she wrote this description in Emma. Called Chawton Cottage during Jane’s lifetime, Jane moved to the village of Chawton in the summer of 1809 when she was 34 years old. Finding Jane in the 21st Century The Arduous Path To Chawton Four years before she arrived to live in relative peace at Chawton that summer, however, Jane and her family experienced first hand what dependency on a male head of a household meant in her era when her father Reverend George Austen died at the age of 74 in January 1805. The family was living in Bath at the time. After her father died, however, the family had to leave Bath and Jane moved two more times with her mother and sister, each time to lodgings that were less expensive than the last.

Following this they stayed in several other locations including Clifton, Adlestrop, Stoneleigh, Kent, and Southampton, and small seaside places. I would think that the cumulative effect of this dislocation also added to Jane’s sensitivity as an author since she learned first hand what it was like to live in ‘reduced circumstances’, as the euphemism of the time termed it. Unsettling Times Biographers have claimed that during this destabilizing period of her life when she and her family moved about (getting rid of all of their furniture as well along the way), Jane seemed unable to write. She must have dealt with her writing block to some degree, however, because as Elizabeth Proudman explains in her booklet called The Essential Guide to Finding Jane Austen in Chawton, the novelist “always carried with her the manuscripts of three unpublished novels, Elinor and Marianne, First Impressions, and Susan.” Refuge At Last Finally in July 1809 which was four-and-a-half years after her father died, the Austens moved into Chawton Cottage.

Jane had effectively moved back home because the small village of Chawton is in the same county of Hampshire as the village of Steventon where Jane spent the first 25 years of her life. Her family only left the county in 1800 to move to Bath because her father wanted to retire there. After traipsing about to different locations, the family finally went back to a neighboring part of the county that they had first left years earlier. You can see this illustrated (and nifty!) map that my husband David made: Steventon, Bath, and Chawton - Places Where Jane Austen Lived A Sharp Observer Who Did Not ‘Marry Well’ During Jane Austen’s lifetime, women’s social standing and economic security were intricately bound up with the men that they married. So because she focused so centrally on this pressure to ‘marry well’ in her classic novels, I find it ironic that both Jane and her sister Cassandra themselves never married, either ‘well’ or otherwise. However, perhaps precisely because she never tied the knot, Jane gained objectivity on such an important social element in her times that might have been impossible otherwise.

Pride and Prejudice‘s Famous Beginning Surely Jane’s circumstances influenced her writing, as you can see reflected in this very famous beginning of her classic novel Pride and Prejudice which was published when she had lived in Chawton for four years: It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife. However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters. The Quill, The Inkwell, The Desk! When we visiting Chawton, I found it exciting to be in Jane’s physical space, to be in the room where she wrote her ingenious novels. For example, here is Jane’s writing table that she used in Chawton – including the quill and inkwell that she used to write all of her wonderful novels.

Jane's Writing Desk A Room With A View And from where Jane’s chair and this little table were located in the room, she could look outside through this window: A Room With A View A Gentleman’s Daughter Like her heroine Elizabeth Bennet in her novel Pride and Prejudice, the woman who wrote her classics on that desk and looked out that window in Chawton was a gentleman’s daughter. Her father George Austen was descended from a family of woollen manufacturers who had risen to the lower ranks of the landed gentry. However, she wasn’t always assured this status since her father’s branch of the family went through difficult times when her father was a boy. That was why it was his wealthy uncle Francis Austen who paid for his education. Then when when he was 16, George received a scholarship to Oxford to study for ordination. A Lady’s Daughter George continued his association with Oxford when he became engaged to Cassandra Leigh. Branches of her Leigh family had academic connections with Oxford and included all classes of gentry. And in terms of status, this intelligent woman was descended from a Lord Mayor of London during the reign of Elizabeth I. The Austen Crew This importance of family loomed large in Jane’s life.

As I read on the site of the Jane Austen Society of Australia (JASA), Claire Tomalin reflected in her biography Jane Austen: A Life that the author “lived with a perpetual awareness of cousinage extending over many counties and even beyond England.” And along with this very large extended family, her nuclear family included eight children with Jane herself being the seventh born. Here is the line-up of the Austen siblings – all of whom along with her mother outlived Jane: Her six brothers were James (b.1765), George (1766), Edward (1767), Henry (1771), Francis, or Frank (1774), and Charles (1779). Her one sister named Cassandra (after their mother) was born in 1773, and Jane herself was born in 1775. Reflections Of Reality? As far as how her one sister figured in her life, Cassandra was Jane’s closest friend throughout the author’s lifetime. Could it be that the sisters Elizabeth and Jane Bennet who are the main characters in Pride and Prejudice and who also are very close in fact echo the author’s real-life relationship with her own sister Cassandra?

Life In The Austen Family Not surprisingly considering her parents’ backgrounds, another biographer of Austen named Park Honan pointed out that life in the Austen home was lived in “an open, amused, easy intellectual atmosphere.” Perhaps this accounts for the fact according to Le Faye’s A Family Record that Jane “never again lived anywhere beyond the bounds of her immediate family environment” after returning from school in 1786. Across The Grass To Chawton Cottage Little Brother Saves The Day The Chawton Cottage to where Jane and other family members went to live after their wanderings was a residence owned by none other than Jane’s third brother Edward. How did her sibling have such means? What happened was that when he was about 16 years old, Edward was adopted by Thomas and Catherine Knight of Godmersham Park in Kent who were wealthy and childless relatives of the Austens. The Knights’ stipulation was that Edward would have to take the family name of Knight. Arranging all of this was a practical way of ensuring that the inheritance would remain in the family, and gradually Edward was entrusted to the affectionate care of these relatives.

Edward Austen Knight eventually took over management of the estates at Godmersham and Chawton in 1797. He lived at Godmersham, and let the Great House (as it was called) at Chawton to gentlemen tenants. By 1809 he offered the house in the village – i.e., Chawton Cottage – to his mother, Cassandra, and Jane. Coping With The Reality Of Life In Georgian Times Why would supposedly loving parents put one of their children up for adoption? I have wondered about this since I read this fact years ago about Edward. In other words, even though it turns out that it was a generous gesture on the part of wealthy relatives as I have just explained – I still find the situation a bit unusual. That’s why I was happy to read an explanation for this as put forth by Michael Giffin in his article called The people in Jane Austen’s life – The quintessential Georgian parents: George & Cassandra Austen featured in the JASA site.

An author, editor, and Anglican priest, Giffin in his article on the JASA site claims that too many biographers, historians, and critics fail to look at the Austen family in the context of the Georgian times in which they lived – which he summarized as follows: …the Georgians… lived in the shadow of the Reformation, Civil War, Restoration, and Glorious Revolution. Their way of life was dominated by an unregulated capitalism …. Agrarian change threatened their economic security…. Their social life was determined by property and patronage…. Every class was restless and insecure and under threat. Giffin further points out the following with particular reference to Edward’s adoption by the Knights, and the effect that this ultimately had on Jane’s life considering that her father had died: …the adoptive and biological parents of Edward Austen had a series of socially-constructed and genetic expectations… for their mutual benefit,…. One by-product was an environment that supported Jane during her most brilliant and productive years… Austen’s life… would have been rendered much more difficult without the support of her brother….

The History of Chawton Cottage As Elizabeth Proudman details in her pamphlet called The Essential Guide To Finding Jane Austen In Chawton, Chawton Cottage was built in around 1700. It then served as an ale house beside the coach road near by for some years. Following that, it was the home of the farm bailiff who worked for the Knights, the wealthy relatives who adopted Jane’s brother Edward. Later when Edward took over management of Godmersham and Chawton, he improved the house for his mother and sisters. Designed With The Family In Mind Because the house is so close to what was considered a busy road in that Georgian era, Edward had a window in the front closed and he had another Gothic one looking into the garden: Chawton Cottage, Side View Leading To Garden Then Edward added three bedrooms at the back. This was also to accommodate the Austens’ good friend Martha Lloyd who lived with the family. Cassandra Lives On Alone After Jane died in 1817 and her mother died in 1827, her sister Cassandra lived alone at the cottage until 1845. When Cassandra died, the house was partitioned to accommodate living space for three families.

A Tribute To A WWII Casualty As you can see in this stone plaque that is on the front wall of the house, Thomas Edward Carpenter bought Chawton Cottage to be a museum in memory of his son Lieutenant Philip John Carpenter. Philip served with the East Surrey Regiment, and he was killed during WWII in action in 1944 in Lake Trasimene in Italy. You can see a portrait of Philip on the stairs in the house. In Memory Of Lieutenant Philip John Carpenter Praise, Jane Style Chawton Cottage became Jane Austen’s House Museum in 1949, the same year the Jane Austen Memorial Trust was founded. I wonder what Jane and her family would think about this. However, historians do believe Jane was delighted with Chawton Cottage as evidenced from this little ditty ‘tribute’ of sorts that she wrote to her brother James to tell him how she felt about the place: Our Chawton Home, how much we find Already in it to our mind; And how convinced that when complete It will all other houses Beat That ever have been made or mended, With rooms concise or rooms distended. Concealed Forever?

So here’s hoping that Jane herself would be content and happy to see how her and her family’s life has been preserved in this lovely museum of a home. Beyond that, however, we do know for certain that an amazing wealth and blossoming of the imagination took place in Chawton Cottage. For this was the place where Jane revised earlier manuscript novels Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Northanger Abbey, and where she also wrote Mansfield Park, Emma, and Persuasion. Still, I like to think for the sake of her and her family’s privacy that Chawton Cottage holds many other secrets beyond what we can see today from the remnants of her and her family’s lives in this quietly beautiful country cottage museum. Plan a Visit to Jane Austen's House Museum in Hampshire By Ferne Arfin Updated January 22, 2016. The most striking object in Jane Austen's House Museum is the tiny table on which she wrote. The little, 12-sided walnut table in the dining parlour is barely big enough for a teacup and saucer.

At this table, writing on small sheets of paper that were easily hidden away if she were interrupted, Jane Austen edited and revised Sense and Sensibility , Pride and Prejudice (200 years old in 2013)and Northanger Abbey, and wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. The substantial village house, once an inn at the crossroads of the Gosport and Winchester roads, is where Jane lived between 1809 and 1817, the last eight years of her life, along with her sister Cassandra, their mother and their close friend Martha Lloyd. Only a few of the author's possessions remain - beside the table, there are some fine examples of her needlework , a quilted bedcover she made with her mother and several letters displayed on a rotating basis in a special cabinet. The donkey cart displayed in one of the outbuildings was used by Jane when she became too ill to walk about the village. continue reading below our video Beware! The 5 Most Common Travel Scams Art Copying Life There are also several items of jewelry and two amber crosses that ultimately made their way into a novel.

Jane's brother Charles, an officer in the Royal Navy, won a share of prize money from the capture of a French ship. He spent some of it in Gibraltar on amber crosses for Jane and Cassandra. Jane used the episode in Mansfield Park where the character Fanny Price is given an amber cross by her sailer brother, William. The Precarious Position of Women The museum, maintained by a trust and supported by members and friends from around the world, is furnished with a number of Austen family portraits and possessions and arranged to illustrate the late 18th and early 19th century life of the Austen family and, in particular, the life of respectable unmarried women and widows of good families but modest means. If you've read even one Jane Austen novel you'll know that marrying off a family's daughters and finding suitable marriage partners is a major preoccupation of the stories. That's simply because it was also a major preoccupation of the period. Unmarried women lived on the goodwill and charity of their better off relations. Jane had six brothers, five of whom contributed £50 each, per year, for the support of their mother and sisters.

Beyond this, they would have been relatively self-sufficient - growing their own vegetables and keeping a few small animals, baking, salting meat and doing laundry in the separate bakehouse. In a situation reminiscent of Downton Abbey , one of the Austen brothers, was adopted as legal heir by wealthy relatives of his father, took their name, becoming Edward Austen Knight, and inherited extensive estates. He provided the village house for the women on his Chawton, Hampshire estate. But male relatives were not obliged by law - or even strong custom - to provide for sisters and widowed mothers. Jane was fortunate.The Austen brothers seem to have been a generous and responsible lot. But in general, single women could not own propery and might be one domestic argument with a sister-in-law away from being put out on the street. During her life, Jane Austen was never identified by name as the author of her own books and earned a lifetime total of about £800 from her writing. These and other insights into the Austen family and village life in the period make the Jane Austen House Museum a very worthwhile day out, about an hour and a half southwest of central London.

The house is in the center of the small, pretty village of Chawton. It's a two-story, tile-roofed brick building facing the main street, next to some interesting thatched cottages and across the road from a pleasant pub, The Greyfriar . If you drive, there is a small, free parking area across the road. There's also access to a pretty walk across the edges of some fields to the village church. Visitor Essentials Hampshires Literary Heritage - VisitHampshire.co.uk Hampshires Literary Heritage Gilbert White's House and Garden & The Oates Collection Selborne, East Hampshire Hampshire has proved a fertile ground for many celebrated writers over the last few centuries, drawn to the beauty of its countryside and heritage. Jane Austen Jane Austen is arguably Hampshire's most celebrated resident, and you can follow her footsteps around the county, from Steventon near Basingstoke where she was born, to the cities of Southampton and Portsmouth , the village of Chawton and finally to her resting place in Winchester where she died in 1817.

Jane Austen's 17th century house in Chawton where she wrote or revised her six great novels is open to the public and holds a treasure trove of memorabilia including her writing desk. Charles Dickens Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812, the second of seven children, and his birthplace is now a museum. Hampshire provided inspiration for several of Dicken's novels, including the notorious Victorian workhouse in Andover and Dickens returned to Portsmouth in his last twenties when researching 'Nicholas Nickleby'. Gilbert White Selborne was home to the Reverend Gilbert White, whose "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne" (1789) still attracts international recognition. You can find out more by visiting Gilbert White's House & The Oats Museum . John Keats John Keats stayed in Winchester in the summer and autumn of 1819, during which time he produced a series of masterpieces. Visitors can follow the 'Keats Walk' celebrating his famous ode 'To Autumn', written after a walk along the River Itchen.

Edward Thomas Poet Edward Thomas lived in the village of Steep from 1913 - 1916, taking inspiration from the countryside around him, while Flora Thompson, who came to Liphook in 1916, based her classic trilogy, Lark Rise to Candleford, on her observations of local natural history and rural life. Other famous literary figures connected with Hampshire include Thomas Hardy whose novels were set in an imaginary Wessex and 'Upper Wessex' on Hardy's map is Hampshire. Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes, lived in Portsmouth and is buried in Minstead churchyard in the New Forest. You can discover more about famous faces in Hampshire or follow in the footsteps of our local authors with our range of circular walks. Jane Austen - Visit Hampshire Jane Austen Roses at Jane Austen's House Chawton, East Hampshire Jane Austen is one of England’s most celebrated and greatest novelists and Hampshire played an important part in her life, not just as the place she lived but as inspiration to many of her novels. Many places in Hampshire are associated with Jane Austen which means Hampshire is the ideal destination for visitors who are looking to discover more about Jane’s life.

In 2017 Hampshire will be celebrating Jane's life in the county for the 200th anniversary of her death, across the county a number of special events, exhibitions, activities will be taking place. Below you'll find all you need to know about Jane Austen and the county's must visit attractions, towns, cities and locations which are connected to the famous writer.

Question: Which author lived at 'Chawton'?
Answer: JANE AUSTEN