extract from chapter 31
1808: Steventon
Author's own photo.
James Austen was woken from his sleep one Sunday morning by the sound of shouting. It was still dark when he jumped out of bed to discover that a nearby barn and some cottages were on fire. He dressed in a hurry and threw on his boots and coat, rousing Mary to wake the children for fear the fire would spread.
By the time he got nearer to the flames, he could see that the thatched roof of the cottages had gone. The crackling orange blaze was travelling systematically over the rafters and destroying them one at a time. A strong easterly wind was making matters worse, fanning the flames into a frenzy and making the smoke rise in circles. All the while, new villagers appeared, each in the same hurriedly dressed state and running to help.
Author's own photo
Cries of confusion peppered the air. ‘Where’s Bond?’ shouted someone. ‘I can’t see him.’
‘Over there,’ cried another, pointing to James’s bailiff, the elderly John Bond, whose home was one of the cottages on fire. He had been the bailiff for over forty years, beginning when James’s father had first moved to Steventon. He was being held back from going inside his house and stood next to a muddled collection of belongings that he had managed to retrieve. His wife was with their next-door neighbour, who was lying on the ground surrounded by a group of women.
Author's own photo
Betty Lovell was burned from top to toe, and her clothes were singed and torn. She lay unconscious on the grass as the women tried salts to revive her. Her husband knelt next to her, shaking and gasping for breath himself. He was clutching a bottle that someone had passed to him and being urged to drink from it.
James did not know what to do. First, he joined a chain of men who were relaying buckets of water towards the fire, but their actions were futile. The fire was raging so ferociously that they couldn’t get near enough to make a difference. He saw one of his farm boys on the edge of the field holding his colt. The animal was neighing and kicking in fright, and James ran over to thank the boy for rescuing him.
‘’Twas Mr Bond that got him, Sir,’ said the boy. ‘He only asked me to hold him.’ James thanked the boy again anyway and patted the colt on his shiny neck.
Author's own photo
Author's own photo
Squire Digweed came up next, like the rest of the village, in dismay at what he was seeing. The barn next to the cottages had housed his winter stores of corn, but they were now gone. The same beloved place that had been home to the theatrical performances of James and his brothers and sisters when they were children, was nothing more than a pile of flickering cinders.
Squire Digweed and James walked around the crowd to check that nobody was hurt, and a loud wail rang out when the last of the walls collapsed. It had taken less than half an hour for two homes and a working barn to become piles of black ash.
James took John Bond and his wife back to the rectory, where Mary and Anna found them food and fresh clothes. Other villagers carried poor Betty Lovell to someone’s home to tend to her, guiding her bemused husband behind. Everyone’s doors were thrown open, and people gathered in little pockets up and down the lanes to do what they could.
Photo: Berrington Hall, Herefordshire
Photo: Brontë Parsonage, Yorkshire
The news of the fire reached the local newspapers, and it was from that account that Fulwar read out the details to Cassandra and Jane in Kintbury.
Copyright Diane Jane Ball 2025