Chawton
chawton house
Chawton House was the estate owned by Edward Austen through his adoption by Mr and Mrs Knight. He and his family lived principally in Godmersham Park in Kent, and so the Chawton estate was often let out to tenants.
During the summer of 1807, there was a break in tenancy and Edward took his family for a holiday there. It was the first time his children had seen it, and it became a family affair with his mother and his siblings visiting too, to make it a large house party.
During the visit, Edward's children and their cousins explored the grounds and sought out secret passages in the house. They listed the genealogy of the family from the portraits hanging in the family gallery, and the ladies paid visits to the poor in the village.
The gentlemen went out shooting and fishing and, as it was a more relaxed atmosphere of holiday time, the whole family ate together at mealtimes and picnicked in the woods.
To learn more about Chawton House and plan a visit there, you will find the website here.
You can also stay within the house for a holiday. Airbnb have a 2 bedroom apartment called Heritage Heaven at Chawton House. Your stay includes full access to the gardens and grounds even when the house is closed. For more information click here.
jane austen's house
Jane Austen's House is now a world-famous museum and was the home of Mrs Austen, Cassandra, Jane and Martha Lloyd from July 1809. It was presented to them by Edward Austen following the death of his bailiff, who had been the previous tenant.
The ladies were very happy there and settled in quickly, enjoying its location on the junction of a busy road with a duck pond outside. There was a large garden which they tended, and several out buildings too.
The museum that you visit today contains lots of original artefacts from the time the Austens lived there, including some first editions of Jane Austen's novels that were written there.
To learn more about what you can see and do at Jane Austen's House, the website is here.
To discover more about the village of Chawton and the people who lived there at the time of our novel, take 'A Time Travel Tour Around Chawton' on the Austenised blog here.
st. nicholas' church
This church stands in the grounds of Chawton House and was where the Austens worshipped when they were in residence. At the time of our novel, Reverend John Rawston Papillon was rector there, who was a good friend of the family and during the summer visit of 1807 they regularly dined at each others' houses.
Today you can see many memorials to the Austens in the church, as it was to become the burial place of Mrs Austen and Cassandra. There is also a large family plot tracing several generations of the Knight family.
If you would like to know more about this church, and take a virtual tour via photographs, there is a very informative article on the Jane Austen's World blog, written by Brenda S. Cox. Read it here.
alton
Alton was the nearest town to Chawton and where the local families did their shopping and conducted their business.
Henry Austen opened a local branch of his bank here in 1806, at Number 10, High Street.
They issued their own bank notes, as was custom at the time, and an original note is part of the collection at Jane Austen's House. You can read about it here.
In April 1809, while Frank Austen was out at sea on his naval duties, his wife Mary rented a cottage in Alton for herself and their daughter, Mary Jane. This is now 31 Lenten Street, and was called Rose Cottage when Mary Austen moved there. This was also where their second child, Francis William, was born on July 12th 1809.
The Church of St. Lawrence in Alton was the church that Mary attended and where baby Francis William was christened on 8th August 1809.
To familiarise yourself with the residents of Alton, and their connections to the Austen family, Visit Hampshire have put together a Jane Austen Trail Walk : Alton to Chawton with a map to explain everything along the way. You can download the leaflet and find out more here.
A Regency-style garden is also situated in the town for visitors to remember Jane Austen. You can read about it on the BBC News website for Hampshire & Isle of Wight here.
Every year in June, the Jane Austen Regency Week takes place in Alton, with a full program of events, including a ball, a picnic and a parade. More information can be found on the Jane Austen Regency Week website here.
chawton extract
If you would like to read an extract from The Austens of Bath where events take place in Chawton, click here.
REFERENCES
Austen-Leigh, W., Austen-Leigh R.A. and Le Faye D. (1989) Jane Austen: A Family Record. London: The British Library. pp.144-145 & 151-159
Le Faye, D. (2013) ‘1809: July 12, Wednesday & August 8, Tuesday' in A Chronology of Jane Austen and her Family 1600-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 370 & 371.
Townsend, T. (2014) Jane Austen's Hampshire. Somerset: Halsgrove. pp.113-136
Worsley L. (2017) Jane Austen at Home. London: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, pp.286-305.