I'm sure I've mentioned in the past that there are a number of literary tours one can take in the UK, assuming there are British authors you enjoy. Regardless of my thoughts on colonialism and critiques of the heavy focus on British literature in school when I was growing up, I do love a lot of British literature. And I loved it before I was exposed to it in school. I was reading Dickens and Austen before I had to read them in high school. I found my identity as a poet in the romantics, Shelley and Keats, the wisdom in the rhymes of of Wordsworth, the advocate for social justice in Blake, and the depth of faith in the Holy Sonnets of Donne. As for Jane Austen, she created protagonists that I could identify with: women who bucked social norms and expectations and wanted to be recognised for their intellect and interest in topics beyond cooking and embroidery. Not that they didn't engage in those--the protagonists could all sing and play an instrument, were instructed in another language, could read and write, and could still prepare afternoon tea, make and mend clothing. But it seemed that they did it because they enjoyed it while simultaneously not wanting to be thought of as an airhead. Back then, looks and money were the best reasons for marriage, not a woman's brain. It was like Anne in Anne of Green Gables as well, a bookish girl, maybe not the best looking, but who attracted the man every other girl dreamed of because he was attracted to her personality, character, and intelligence. I love cooking and baking and I can mend and sew and sing, but I love to read and learn and be appreciated for my intellect as well. So I've read the entire Anne series, and I've also read all of Austen's novels, including her unfinished work, Sanditon. The British Library has an excellent article on Austen and her heroines if you're interested. Anyway, I had been to Jane Austen House in Bath several years ago, and that's a museum dedicated to her, but she lived in Bath for a short period of time, didn't actually do any writing there, and felt it was the most depressing time of her life. I've seen the house where she used to live in Bath, which is different from the museum's location. And then I found out that there is Jane Austen's House--the house where she actually lived for the last 8 years of her life. It was only when she became quite ill that she went to Winchester to seek treatment and ended up dying there, but she lived in a house in Chawton, which is near the town of Alton, and wrote all her novels there. So of course, I had to go there!
With spring break, and the fact that we aren't going anywhere since we have family coming our way, I had a couple of days to myself while my husband was at work, so I decided to take a day trip by myself. I loved solo travel back in the day, and I love travelling with my husband, but a solo day trip like this is nice because my husband isn't particularly interested in Jane Austen, so he knew he wasn't going to miss anything, and it allowed me to take my time and really enjoy the visit without feeling like I'm forcing someone to see it who isn't really into it.
While cool in the morning, it was a lovely, sunny day. The house is about a half-hour walk from the Alton train station. It's a pretty straightforward walk, just down high street out of the town and one slight right to get into Winchester Road and then you're pretty much there after another 10 or so minutes. There actually is a bus that drops you right at the house, but it runs very infrequently, about every 2-3 hours. So it wasn't very convenient, and we are used to walking a lot here now that we live somewhere where walking is normal and we don't have a vehicle.
The area is located in the county of Hampshire, which just seemed really pretty to me. Maybe because with all the challenging times at home, with my dad, a friend, and my cat passing away all in a short space of time, I hadn't really had the chance to really just relax and do something outdoors, but the countryside in England is generally lovely, and with springtime flowers out, it was a breath of fresh air that I needed. The house itself is still surrounded by a fair number of thatched-roof houses and near to a farm with a large flock of sheep. There is a large park quite near as well from which you can enjoy the bucolic sheep-filled pastures and spire of St Nicholas Church at Chawton. The farmland has an interesting creek or stream running through it; it seemed like a ditch filled with water, but the water was running toward something and also went under the driveway to nearby Chawton House with no bridge. A ditch would just end on either side of the road. The area is also rife with a large variety of birds. Jane Austen's House used to be part of the Chawton estate, and it was considered a cottage on the estate. Her brother Edward had inherited the estate from a distant relative, and Edward lived in the manor house known as Chawton House, just outside the village of Chawton. As his sisters, Cassandra and Jane, were unmarried, and his mother widowed at an early age, he gave them the cottage to share, and they seemed to live there quite happily. Jane's writing desk was located in a corner of the dining room that allowed her to look out onto the main street and see the comings and goings of the local residents, which apparently was much to her amusement.
Chawton House is now owned by a charity and is used as a museum, in addition to housing a library for women's studies and a tea house in a building called The Old Kitchen, which was built in the 1500s. Unfortunately, these were closed yesterday. Jane Austen's House itself is usually only open Wednesday to Sunday, but they open at special times, usually during school breaks. It seems that Chawton House and the tea house keep the same schedule except they don't open for more days during school breaks, so I was a little disappointed not to be able to take tea there, but as it wasn't the primary goal of my visit, I won't really have a lot of regret in life on account of that.
In any case, Jane Austen's House is fairly well preserved. It had been owned by a man whose son died in WWII, and so for whatever reason, he decided to bequeath it to the Jane Austen Society, who has since worked on repairing it and renovating it so it's safe for a visit and not falling apart. What I appreciated most about my visit was learning about how all of Austen's family supported her so much. They could have told her to know her place--as in, be what society wants women to be--but they didn't. In fact, one of her brothers was in the military, and it was through him that she was able to get her first book published through a military publishing house. And though she was publishing anonymously, locally, everyone knew it was her because her brothers were so proud that they used to tell everyone they knew about their clever sister's success!
One thing I took photos of just for the sake of curiosity was a couple of the recipes laid out in the bakeroom (where they baked, made puddings etc., a separate room from the kitchen!). Instructions were all written out like an essay, not a list of ingredients and steps. You'd really have to read carefully to follow it and ensure you didn't miss anything.
When I was done, I walked up to the church at Chawton House called St Nicholas Church. It's the church that Austen would have attended while living in Chawton, and her mother and sister, who continued living in the cottage after Jane's relatively early death, are also buried in the cemetery outside the church, and you can see their graves. There is also a Jane Austen bronze in the cemetery. It was on my walk there and back that I saw a lot of birds and got some decent photos. Jane was really close to her mother and sister, so it was neat that you can see their graves, and I've now seen those as well as Jane's grave at Winchester Cathedral in Winchester, about 15 miles south of Chawton.
I finished my visit by popping into Cassandra's Cup, the cafe across the street from Jane Austen's House, for cream tea. It was refreshing and I got to meet a local, elderly lady there who was holding a dying plant, some sort of tropical plant like a bromeliad. She saw me looking at her plant, and she started telling me about it, how it had been left with no light and water, and she was clearly upset about this. It looks like she donated it to the restaurant, but they either didn't want it or know very little about plants. Eventually she went off to talk to one of the staff about it. I just have that face that people tell their problems to...But those little moments are kind of adorable, too, and it added to the story of my day trip to Jane Austen's house.
Unfortunately, Wix has changed its policies, and I can't upload any more photos due to storage limitations, so for now, please click this link to see my photo album in Google Photos until I can figure out what to do.
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