13 Jul 2017
On 18 July the literary spotlight shines on Jane Austen as the country commemorates the 200th anniversary of her death. In addition, the Bank of England will unveil the new £10 note on this date which will proudly feature the renowned writer. Events in her birthplace of Hampshire and across the country will mark the bicentenary – from a book bench sculpture trail to the Jane Austen Festival and special exhibitions, here VisitEngland rounds up how to take an Austen trail around the country.
Discover the life and times of Jane Austen in Hampshire
As Jane's birthplace, final resting place and the county in which she spent her most prolific writing years including the penning of her first novel, Sense and Sensibility; Hampshire is a major focal point for the Jane Austen 200 commemorations and events.
Start your trip at Jane Austen's House Museum (her former home) and Chawton House Library in the village of Chawton, which is hosting changing exhibitions, talks, activities and other special celebrations up until December. There's still time to catch Hampshire Cultural Trust's The Mysterious Miss Austen exhibition in Winchester (until 24 July) which boasts special and unique Jane Austen pieces, including loans from the National Portrait Gallery, British Library and private collections. Winchester Cathedral is running 'Tours and Tea' (monthly until November) exploring Jane's life.
In Basingstoke, visitors can follow a downloadable sculpture trail made up of 25 'BookBenches' (until 31 August) each uniquely designed and painted by a professional artist with their personal interpretation of a Jane Austen theme.
Visitors to the area can even sleep at a location visited by the author with a stay at Oakley Hall Hotel, Steventon, a luxury 50 bedroom hotel (bed and breakfast from £134 per night), which Jane visited frequently in its guise as Oakley Hall. Or enjoy a novel escape at Tylney Hall, which is offering a special anniversary package for 2017 for £252 per night, based on two people sharing, including breakfast, afternoon tea and entry to the Jane Austen House museum.
www.janeausten200.co.uk www.visit-hampshire.co.uk/
Follow in Jane's footsteps in Bath
The South West Spa city of Bath is a great place to get to know Jane Austen, where she lived between 1801 and 1806. The city's perfectly preserved Georgian architecture remains unchanged from the streets depicted in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
Visitors can step back in time with a free downloadable audio walking tour of the city 'In the footsteps of Jane Austen', that includes extracts from her novels and letters, which brilliantly describe Bath as it would have been in its Georgian heyday. Be sure to stop off at the Jane Austen Centre, located in a Georgian town house just a few doors down from where she once lived and home to an exhibition of costumes, manuscripts, and film clips to bring the author's world to life and explore the city's influence on her work, as well as the all-important Regency Tea Rooms (£11 per adult and £5.50 per child).
And for true enthusiasts, visit between 8-17 September to join the largest gathering of Jane Austen enthusiasts at the Jane Austen Festival. Previous years have seen fans donning full regency garb at the Grand Regency Costumed Promenade, meeting their very own Mr Darcy at the Country Dance Ball, and dancing their sense and sensibilities away at the Regency Costumed Masked Ball. 2017 will see the 17th edition of the annual festival. Tickets on sale now.
www.visitbath.co.uk
Explore Jane's seaside sojourns in Lyme Regis
Jane is known to have visited and loved Lyme Regis from letters to her sister Cassandra where she described walking on the Cobb and her last novel Persuasion was set in the Dorset seaside town. Literary Lyme offers a wealth of guided walking tours of Lyme Regis and the Jurassic Coast to follow in the footsteps of authors who chose to visit and live there and its use as a setting in novels and films. A variety of tours are available – from short 90 minute walking tours around Lyme Regis to longer trips around the coastline, including Golden Cap, the highest point in Southern England, which features in a film adaptations of Persuasion (90 minute tours cost from £10 per person.)
www.literarylyme.co.uk www.visitdorset.co.uk
Literary Trails and film buff locations in Berkshire
Jane Austen went to school at Abbey Gateway, Reading between 1785 and 1786. It was the only time in her life she lived away from home. Explore the area on a Readipop Reading Literary Trail, a free walking tour developed by a group of young people, as part of a heritage project called Reading on Tour to uncover Reading's hidden history.
Film buffs can also visit the 18th-century Palladian mansion of Basildon Park, which doubled as Mr Bingley's house, Netherfield and the dreamy location for Darcy and Elizabeth's first meeting in the 2005 production of Pride and Prejudice starring Keira Knightley as Elizabeth Bennett and Matthew MacFadyen as Mr Darcy. With both its impressive exterior and many of its indoor spaces featuring in the lavish production, Basildon is instantly recognisable to fans. Entry to Basildon Park costs £14 per adult; £7.50 per child.
www.visitsoutheastengland.co.uk
Movie tours and your own Regency House party in Kent
The Austen family had many links to Kent and Jane's father was born, attended school and later taught in Tonbridge where a Jane Austen Walk and audio tour can be taken around the town. The author travelled often within the region stopping off in Dartford and a regular guest at Godmersham Park near Ashford, where her brother Edward lived. For those who want to sleep under the same roof as a literary great, the former home of her brother Edward's wife's family Goodnestone Park has been completely refurbished to a very high standard for up to 24 guests. Set amidst 14 acres of 18th century parkland, the house retains a lot of original features from Austen's time taking guests back to the dinners and dances she would have attended there. Book through Mulberry Cottages from £5760 for up to 24 guests.
As well as being home to Austen's heritage, Kent is home to a number of locations for well-known film and TV adaptations of her books. The Jane Austen Movie Trail on the live Kent movie map highlights locations from the BBC adaptation of Emma starring Romola Garai and Johnny Lee Miller including the idyllic village of Chillham, which represented 18th Century Highbury and Squerryes Court in Westerham, which doubled as Emma's family home. The Keira Knightley big screen adaptation of Pride and Prejudice also found its home in Kent with Groombridge Place in Tunbridge Wells providing the perfect visualisation of the Bennet's family home. Visitors can take in the gardens and enchanted forest of Groombridge year-round (rom £10.95 per adult and £8.95 per child).
www.visitkent.co.uk/jane-austen
Jane Austen by the sea in East Sussex
Brighton makes an appearance in Pride and Prejudice as the place where the flirtatious Lydia Bennett flees with her roguish lover, George Wickham. The author's relationship with coastal resorts is explored in an exhibition 'Jane Austen by the Sea' at The Royal Pavilion (until 8 January 2018, free with admission) looking at life in Brighton during her time, to mark the bicentenary of her death. It paints a picture of the fashionable watering hole in the early 1800s, when it was a thriving garrison town featured in Austen's novels alongside other towns all along the south coast. Curator Dr Alexandra Loske has gathered items including highlights such as King GeorgeIV's personal, specially-bound copy of Emma at the Royal Pavilion for the first time, a mourning brooch containing a lock of Jane Austen's hair, one of her music books, and important rare manuscripts and letters including unfinished novel, Sanditon, set in a seaside town in Sussex. These sit alongside prints, paintings and caricatures of the resorts and fashions popular with coastal visitors in Austen's lifetime, and original Regency costumes from Brighton & Hove's own collection.
Experience Jane Austen on the big and small screen in Derbyshire and the Peak District
Quoted by Austen herself as there being 'no finer county in England than Derbyshire', it is fitting that the region has featured widely in Jane Austen adaptations. Perhaps one of the most famous is Lyme Park, which included Colin Firth's famous lake 'Mr Darcy' lake scene in the BBC's adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. On the big screen, Chatsworth House was used as the location for Pemberley, the residence of Mr. Darcy in the filming of Pride and Prejudice in the 2005 Keira Knightley film adaptation of the book. It is believed that Jane Austen based her idea of Pemberley on Chatsworth House, as she wrote her novel while in nearby Bakewell (of cherry and almond tarts fame), which is considered to be the inspiration behind Lambton. It is also believed that Jane Austen once stayed in local hotel The Rutland Arms whilst visiting the area and revising the final chapters of Pride and Prejudice. True fans can opt to stay in the Jane Austen Four Poster Room (from £157 per weekday night, or £195 on the weekend, including breakfast) and guests staying for three nights or more can receive free tickets to Haddon Hall, another location used in the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
Take a Pride and Prejudice tour through Wiltshire
The Keira Knightley film production of Pride and Prejudice features the 18th-century landscaped garden, Stourhead, and one of its enchanting temples. The Temple of Apollo, set above the tranquil lake, was used as the location for Mr Darcy's first and futile proposal to Lizzie. Lacock, a wonderfully preserved village dating from the 13th century, played the village of Meryton in the BBC's Pride and Prejudice. It was here that the Bennet girls, in particular Lydia and Kitty 'whose minds were more vacant than their sisters', shopped for bonnets, sought the latest tittle-tattle from their Aunt Philips, and hoped to attract the attentions of the officers - in particular a certain Mr Wickham. The six-part BBC adaptation of the novel also used Luckington Court in Wiltshire, which now offers dedicated tours to show fans filming locations around the house, which remains largely unchanged.
For more literary holiday inspiration check out www.visitengland.com/literaryheroes
Find an interactive literary map here: www.visitengland.com/short-breaks-england/literary-heroes/explore-englands-literary-hotspots
Ends
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