In the Footsteps of Jane in London

This book by Anne-Marie Edwards turned out to be an invaluable resource during my UK trip in July.

The book provides an excellent guide to walking tours to most of the places relevant to Jane Austen’s life: Steventon, Godmersham, Bath, Lyme, Southampton, Chawton, Great Bookham, London, Winchester and more. I used the book as a guide mainly while visiting London and Bath, as I simply wouldn’t have known where to start! The instructions were fairly simple to follow; however, I used an extra map to help me on my walks as the maps provided in the book weren’t all that clear.

In London, I followed the guide and started my walking tour from Piccadilly. The walk is around 5 miles in length, a detail which I failed to notice as I started walking!

Coaches to London from the south and west of England used to stop in Piccadilly, close to the entrance to the Burlington Arcade. From Piccadilly I turned to Old Bond Street.

The area is now, of course, dotted with designer boutiques, but the architecture is as it used to be in the Georgian times. Jane spent a lot of time in the Mayfair area and may have passed these buildings on her outings.

It was in Mayfair that Jane set most of the London scenes in Sense and Sensibility.  It was here in Old Bond Street that Willoughby sent the letter that broke Marianne’s heart.

From Cork Street I turned to Clifford Street, which retains a strong period feel.

These attractive eighteenth-century houses with their rows of Georgian windows, pillared doorways and lovely wrought iron work make this area look so authentic that one feels like one is in a movie set! I could almost hear the clanking sounds of the passing coaches…

From Clifford Street, I turned to Savile Row, then into Vigo Street and finally to Sackville Street, before entering Piccadilly again.

Having crossed Piccadilly Circus, I walked towards Charing Cross Road. Across from St Martin’s Lane, there was a small arched entrance on the right, leading to Goodwin’s Court.

On this narrow lane, you can see typical rounded bows of eighteenth-century terraces facing each other. These buildings now house small boutiques and salons, but in the alleyway, there is nothing to remind you of the modern times.

Can you spot the carriage lamps and the lovely brass fittings on the door?

From there, I entered into Bedfordbury.

From Bedford Court, I turned to Bedford Street. I then turned to Henrietta Street near Covent Garden, which is where Jane’s brother, Henry, lived, at Number 10 (below, on the right). At the time, Henry was a banker, and his bank was situated downstairs. Jane visited Henry here after the death of his wife, Eliza in 1813, and again in 1814.

From Henrietta Street, I started walking towards the Strand. As I walked down the Mall, I passed Carlton Terrace, which stands on the site of Carlton House, Prince Regent’s London home, where Jane visited the Prince’s librarian in 1815. 

I passed Buckingham Palace, which in Jane’s time was the Queen’s house. I walked through Green Park towards Hyde Park Corner. It was again a lovely, sunny day with plenty of people enjoying the sun, relaxing with picnics in the park. Jane saw the parks very much how we seem them today.

A few blisters later, I walked towards Sloane Street in Knightsbridge, where Jane first stayed with Henry and Eliza in 1811. In Jane’s time, Sloane street was an isolated development in a marshy area; it is now a wide road with plenty of designer boutiques in and around it. The house where Jane stayed has since been reconstructed in Victorian style. Here Jane reworked and edited Sense and Sensibility.

My last stop was Hans Place off Hans Street, which in Jane’s time was surrounded by fields. From Henrietta Street, Henry moved to Hans Place, which is now a beautiful, Victorian crescent with plenty of greenery in the middle. Perhaps Henry’s original house resembled the small, brown Georgian house in the right-hand corner.

Henry’s house was at number 23, Hans Place.

  

Seeing Jane’s name printed on a plaque brought a smile to my face, and this was a wonderful way to end my tour. Despite the length of the walk, the tour was definitely worth it – a lovely way to do sightseeing across London!

Just make sure to wear some good shoes on your tour!

 

References: Edwards, A-M. (1991). In the Steps of Jane Austen – Walking Tours of Austen’s England. Wisconsin: Jones Books.

“I walked to Alton, & dirt excepted, found it delightful”

Jane Austen was a great walker. In her time, walking provided beneficial exercise for ladies and a chance to socialise. Jane delighted in natural beauty, and walking in a beautiful environment will have been a favourite pastime for her. “I prefer walking”, she said, it’s “the pleasantest part of the day”.

Alton is a market town in East Hampshire, close to Winchester and within easy walking distance from Chawton, Jane’s permanent home. Jane and Cassandra used to take a daily walk to Alton to shop, to collect the post, and to visit friends and relatives. She made an effort to do this even when her health was declining, as she preferred not to show her weakness and was persistent to maintain her fitness. Thinking herself well, she wrote, “I feel myself getting stronger than I was half a year ago & can so perfectly well walk to Alton, or back again, without the slightest fatigue”.

Having finished my tour of Chawton, I decided to walk the 1.7 mile journey to Alton. It was a pleasant walk with plenty of greenery and wild flowers to admire on the way. The first thing I saw as I arrived in Alton, was Alton church (St Lawrence), which has been there since well before Jane Austen’s days.

As I entered the High Street, I could see the usual M & S and other such chain shops dotting the street. However, a historic town, Alton still retains the distinct style of the 19th century in architecture and landscape – the curved roads, the Georgian windows and the raised pavements…

Along the High Street, I walked past a pub that used to be a coaching inn in Jane Austen’s time, and a house where Jane’s brother, Frank used to be a tenant.  At 4, High Street, I saw the home of William Curtis, Jane’s Doctor whom she called “Alton Apothy” (on the right).

Jane’s favourite brother, Henry, had one of his banks in Alton. He had already attempted a career in the military before embarking on a career in banking. That proved to be unsuccessful and, close to the end of Jane’s life, he took orders and became a clergyman like his father.

The Bank of Austen, Gray & Vincent was at 10, High Street. The bank also handled some of Jane’s correspondence between Alton and London.

References: Brochure for a Jane Austen trail in Alton and Chawton, provided by the Alton Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

At Home in Chawton

 

In July I had the chance to visit Chawton Cottage where Jane Austen lived from 1809, during her late thirties. Tired of having to visit relatives and move houses, Jane didn’t hide her delight when her fortunate brother, Edward Austen Knight, offered the cottage on his Chawton estate to his widowed mother and two sisters. A permanent home, at last!

Chawton Cottage was built in the late 1600’s and was previously used as an inn. The house has eight rooms in it, outbuildings and a lovely garden.

As you enter, the first thing you see is the bakehouse ahead of you.

The bakehouse is where bread and cakes were baked in the large oven on the right. Dishes and clothes were also washed there – on the left, you can see the wash boiler.

On the right, there is a donkey cart, which was used as modest transport by Jane when she became terminally ill and was too tired to walk. Visualising her on the donkey cart somehow made me feel sad.

As you come out of the bakehouse, you enter the lovely garden behind the cottage. Jane must have enjoyed spending time sitting on a bench in the shrubbery, reading a letter or a book, or admiring the plants and fruit.  These days the garden is, of course, extremely well tended and has plenty of blooming flowers dotted around it. I wonder how it will have looked 200 years ago?

In the days when allopathic medicine was at its basics, herbs were used aplenty to heal all kinds of ailments. The Austens grew several herbs for medicinal uses in the garden.

Next, you enter the kitchen, which is connected to the cottage. The kitchen looks light and spacious and very inviting. Again, one wonders how it would have looked in those days?

The first room at the back of the cottage is the drawing room. The drawing room was used for entertaining guests and spending time in the evenings - reading, doing needlework, or playing music, among other pastimes.

Rev. George Austen’s – Jane’s father’s – bookcase is one of the authentic pieces of furniture in the cottage. No doubt, this won’t have been the only bookcase that the Austens had had earlier, as they were avid readers, and George Austen is known to have had a large library for the use of his children as well as his pupils.

 

Another interesting piece in the room is the piano. This was not the original piano from the house, but similar to the one that Jane played. Jane was in the habit of getting up first in the morning and practising the piano while the others were still asleep. The museum encourage you try the piano, and it did have a very ‘old’ sound to it when I tried it, nothing like the modern pianos that I’m used to!

The closest room to the road is the dining parlour. It was here that Jane prepared the tea for the rest of the family, with the tea things being kept locked in the drawer on the left-hand side. Mrs Austen is said to have been happy to have the dining table so close to the windows, as she enjoyed observing the carriages and people go by.

By the window you can see the iconic writing table. Jane wrote under natural light from the dining room window, and famously requested not to have the creaking door to be oiled, as this would signal when people were about to enter the room and she could hide her manuscript under some sheets on the desk! The desk really is tiny, but it just goes to show how it takes very little physically to produce great works of literature.

Jane and Cassandra’s upstairs bedroom felt comfortable and cosy. The room is quite small, though, but this will not have bothered Jane as she had shared a bedroom all her life and never had the luxury of privacy as such.

The wash things – a water bowl and a chamber pot – were kept in the drawer on the left. There is an interesting article on this topic in Jane Austen’s world.

There was also a room displaying objects from Jane Austen’s naval officer brothers, as well as copies of Jane Austen’s letters in one of the rooms. The museum was very well done up, but of course it would have been interesting to see more of the objects owned by Jane Austen herself. However, what is left of her few belongings, has been well preserved.

Chawton Cottage seems a comfortable home even to modern eyes, and it’s no wonder that living in the cottage, surrounded by her dear friends and family, in her beloved countryside, must have inspired Jane Austen to begin writing again after a gap of many years – years of insecurity and sadness.

Jane expressed her delight in the following words to her brother Francis:

“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.

You’ll find us very snug next year,

Perhaps with Charles and Fanny near…”

My Pilgrimage to Chawton

Last month I finally got the chance to visit Chawton at my leisure – on my own, with plenty of time on my hands. A chance to walk the roads that Jane had walked, past the buildings and hedgerows that she had passed, to admire the fields and trees that she had admired in her beloved Hampshire countryside…

I took the bus from Winchester, which took around 40 minutes to reach the roundabout near Chawton village on the way to Alton.

From the roundabout I followed the signs and walked down the road towards Chawton.

I walked past some beautiful, old cottages, which can’t have altered much since Jane’s lifetime.

 

Thatch Cottage (below) was home to Miss Benn, a friend to the Austen ladies. She lived in this building until 1816.



I soon reached Jane Austen’s house, which I will describe in more detail in another post.

The cottage (the red-brick building on the left) is situated at the junction of Fareham and Gosport, which used to be a busy spot when the Austens lived there. Chawton is now a small and fairly quiet village with a strong period feel to it.

After Chawton Cottage on the left, you can see a thatched building (below), which used to house the Clinker family. They had a blacksmith’s shop, where the Austen’s coach would stop for ‘servicing’.

On the other side of the road, opposite Chawton Cottage, there is now a tea shop aptly named ‘Cassandra’s Cup’. It’s a lovely, quaint place with some excellent cakes.

After finishing my tour of Chawton Cottage, I turned right to walk towards Chawton House and church. It was a beautiful, sunny day of July and the walk was lovely, with green fields, high hedgerows and wild flowers on the roadsides and sheep pottering about the fields.  One can easily imagine how these landscapes will have inspired Jane Austen to write with such warmth about country life.

I soon saw Chawton Church – St Nicholas Church – across the field on the left.

Having seen the church from inside, I was slightly disappointed to discover later that, although this was the original spot for Chawton Church, most of the church was destroyed by fire in 1871 and therefore this was not the building that Jane would have known. However, you can still see the well-preserved tombstones of Jane’s mother (left) and sister Cassandra (right) in the churchyard.

I walked on, and soon reached the gates to Chawton House on the left. Chawton House was owned by Jane’s wealthy brother, Edward Austen Knight who, as the squire of the estate, provided the living for the Austen ladies on his estate. The Austen ladies were regular visitors to the manor, which they called the Great House.

Chawton House is only open to visitors once a week, but I was lucky enough to have a quick glance from the entrance. Chawton House was the last stop on my walk around Chawton.

References: Brochure by the Alton Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Aisha – The Dashing Emma of Bollywood

         Abhay Deol and Sonam Kapoor (Arjun-Mr Knightley and Aisha-Emma) from http://bit.ly/a4Qsfv

Time and time again we see remakes of Jane Austen novels, most of which fail to impress us who know our favourite novels inside out. Yet, seeing all these new adaptations appear clearly demonstrates how widely Jane Austen has influenced the world of art and entertainment. 200 years after her death, Jane Austen continues to move us, entertain us, and remind us of the imperfections and foibles in human nature.

In Emma, she delights us with her huge cast of interesting if contrasting characters that we can still identify in people around us. The rich, pampered girl who is used to getting her way; the patronising older man who behaves like your big brother but cares about you more than you know; the handsome, charming stranger who is not what he seems; the naive, young girl who is introduced to society and whose manners are polished by well-meaning friends.    

The wealth of interesting characters is the reason why Jane Austen continues to be popular. Throughout the world, new adaptations, both period and contemporary, emerge annually. India, in particular, is an ideal place for the setting of contemporary Jane Austen adaptations – a conservative, traditional society that has a strict social hierarchy and still favours matchmaking in the marriage market.

                                                                                                              From http://bit.ly/aH3PmG

The newly released Aisha is a refreshing Bollywood remake of Jane Austen’s Emma. I was lucky enough to see the movie on its first date of release (today), and was impressed against my expectations.

Although the movie had the dialogue and style typical of a Bollywood masala movie, it was well able to capture the characters and the feel of the original novel. An added bonus was the beautiful costumes and excellent cinematography in the movie. My only criticism would be that the film did miss out a few key characters – Emma’s sickly, needy father; the intolerable Mrs Elton – and the intriguing mystery between Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill. However, I would warmly recommend this light movie to any Austen fan anywhere in the world – with subtitles of course!