A peek inside Jane Austen's last home in Winchester

No 8 College Street with a plaque for Jane Austen. 

If you have ever visited Winchester, you may have walked past this unassuming neutral-coloured building where Jane once stayed. For the first time this year, to commemorate Jane Austen 250, the house is open to visitors for special tours of the property; I was lucky enough to explore this building over the weekend and see the very informative exhibition created especially for the occasion. 

Winchester College on the left of Jane's lodgings.

Number 8 was built in the 18th century, and the building remains for the most part as it was during Jane's time here. The house was built on Winchester Cathedral land and was leased out to tenants. The property is now owned and managed by Winchester College, which is situated next door. Interestingly, eight of Jane's nephews studied at this prestigious boarding school, and the institute was familiar to Jane through these family connections. I will write more about Winchester College in another post soon. 

When Jane Austen's health could no longer improve under the care of the Alton apothecary, Jane travelled with her sister Cassandra to Winchester for better treatment from Dr Giles King Lyford. She wrote, "As our Alton Apothy did not be pretend to be able to cope with it, better advice was called in. Our nearest very good is in Winchester... I am going to Winchester, instead, for some weeks to see what Mr Lyford can do farther towards re-establishing me in tolerable health". It was here that Jane was cursed by Cassandra and her sister-in-law, Mary, during the terminal stages of her illness and this is where she breathed her last on 18th July 1817. 

The lease was held by a local lady called Mary David who owned several properties on the street, and Jane's friend Elizabeth Heathcote arranged the accommodation for the Austen ladies. The sisters occupied several rooms on the middle floor of the house, although it is unknown how many rooms belonged to their lease. 

Jane wrote to her nephew and biographer, James Edward, "We have a neat little drawing room with a bow window overlooking Dr Gabell's garden". Dr Gabell was the Headmaster of Winchester College. The drawing room may have been this room (below), as it has a neat bow window from where you can see the garden opposite. 

The serene, quiet atmosphere with just the sound of old, creaking floor boards and the melancholy quotes on the walls really take you back to Jane Austen's time here. 

Jane wrote to her nephew James-Edward, "Our lodgings are very comfortable". 

Jane only left the lodgings once, in a sedan chair. She spent most of her time lying on the sofa and was visited by her brothers, her friend Elizabeth Heathcote who lived nearby, and her nephew Charles Knight, who was then a student at the college. 

The image below shows the floor plan of how the middle floor would have looked in Jane's times. 

Walking through this hallway, there are two more rooms at the back that may have been used as bedrooms.

The first "bedroom" (above) exhibited pictures and stories about Winchester College, which I will discuss in more detail in a further post. 

The second room had some maps and an exquisite naval ship on display. 

This model of a warship was created out of bone and metal by French prisoners during the Napoleonic wars, possibly at Portsmouth Harbour. The bone came from the prisoners' food scraps. The significance of this ship is Jane Austen's family connection to the navy and its influence on her novels Mansfield Park and Persuasion. 

From this room, you can see out onto the garden behind the property with a view of Winchester College on the left. 

Downstairs, there are first and second editions of Jane Austen's novels on display. These were bound in cardboard, and wealthier readers would get their copies bound in leather, which was expensive. 

A first edition of "Emma". 

Visiting Jane Austen's last home was such a special opportunity and a somewhat emotional experience for a lifelong admirer of Jane Austen, thanks to Winchester College who have created a truly wonderful exhibition to celebrate the life of Jane Austen. 

Looking out of the upstairs window, you could feel how Cassandra must have felt when the funeral procession left from the house and finally disappeared from her sight on their way towards the Cathedral, where Jane had the privilege to be buried and is still paid respects by thousands of mourners every year. 

References and further reading: 

My blog about Jane's last journey: https://austenised.blogspot.com/2010/08/following-janes-last-journey.html

Le Faye, Deirdre. (2011) Jane Austen's Letters. Fourth Edition. OUP.

My thoughts on "Jane Austen - The Rise of a Genius"

Have you seen the new BBC documentary, "Jane Austen - The Rise of a Genius" yet? 

The two-part documentary, commemorating Jane Austen 250, is an accolade to Jane Austen and discusses her significant influence on modern literature and growth as a writer. The production explores the events in Jane Austen´s life that had a profound effect on her and the people that she knew who influenced her writing.  

For the documentary, the BBC have chosen a range of "experts" to discuss Jane Austen, some of whom are more questionable than others! I thought it was interesting to hear what the biographer, Paula Byrne, had to say about Jane Austen, but Cherie Blair may have been a less relevant expert on the topic. 

Dr Paula Byrne

Cherie Blair

There were several familiar faces from Jane Austen adaptations, such as:

Greg Wise (Willoughby in S & S 1995)

Charity Wakefield (Marianne in S & S 2008)

Sam West (Mr Elliott in Persuasion 1995) 

Tamsin Greig (Miss Bates in Emma 2009)

The dramatisation was well carried out, however the casting was not to my liking - I much preferred the Jane Austen of the recent "Miss Austen" series. 

It was interesting to hear first-hand about the euphoria that authors feel when their book first gets published. The authors interviewed shared how Jane Austen would have felt when she first got her books published and the empowerment that she felt when she earned her own money through writing. 

I thought it was interesting how the documentary described how Jane Austen fitted in her time period and the radical ideas that she had under cover. The documentary claims that Jane Austen was essentially a political novelist who wrote about money, class and movement and was against treating people as commodities, whether they were slaves or unmarried spinster women. Jane Austen used the novel to bring about inequalities in her society, highlighting the disparity in wealth and the responsibility that people with money had over others. The documentary shows how these issues were close to Jane´s own heart, having been somewhat of a commodity in the marriage market herself and been at the mercy of her father and brothers throughout her life. In her novels, Jane Austen makes references to things that her contemporaries would have found radical but modern readers can often be oblivious to, such as her choice to name her book "Mansfield Park" (after the abolitionist judge, Lord Mansfield). Some of these themes were also discussed by Helena Kelly in her novel, "Jane Austen the Secret Radical", which I read recently. 

Although the two-part documentary didn´t teach me anything new as such, I thought it was a well-researched introduction into the world of Jane Austen and her journey to develop her unique style. I feel that the documentary could be helpful for students who are learning about 19th century literature and Jane Austen in particular. I also feel that critics of Jane Austen could benefit from seeing the documentary, as it brings out the best in Jane Austen and really highlights her significance and influence in so many areas.