An English Diary - Jane Austen's House

I wasn't expecting a palace

“Why, one day in the country is worth a month in the town”
Christina Rossetti

Hello dear friends, I have been fortunate to experience some wondrous English jaunts these past weeks, the arrival of a kindred overseas friend is always ample incentive to scheme adventures. The lead up to our little holiday was pressed on all sides with work and life’s challenges so I felt like a calf released form the stalls once the work was finally put to rest and the holiday clock began to chime singingly.

Jane Austen’s Hampshire Home

I wasn’t expecting a palace but equally I was not expecting such a quaint and compact cottage for the author of six of the world’s literary wonders. Jane Austen's House Museum is a small independent museum in the village of Chawton near Alton in Hampshire (where I was also born). It is a writer's house museum occupying the 17th-century house (informally known as Chawton Cottage) in which novelist Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life, during which time she wrote, revised and made ready to be published all six of her novels, and the fragment Sanditon. The museum has been a Grade I listed building since 1963.

You can read more HERE.

Jane Austen’s Hampshire home in Chawton

I have visited countless stately houses, mansions and manors within whose grand rooms many a splendid workspace has been admired, even coveted. Take this desk for instance at Hidcote Manor, surely one could conjure half decent thoughts in this seat and with that view? . . .

. . . contrast this with Jane’s diminutive hub of inspiration —