Jane Austen in Chawton and Alton, Hampshire

Jane Austen (1775–1817) was born in the rectory at Steventon, Hampshire, where her father George was its incumbent. George died in 1805, after the Austens had moved to Bath, and in 1809 Jane, her mother Cassandra, her sister Cassandra Elizabeth, and Martha Lloyd moved to Chawton, where Jane would stay until a short time before her death in Winchester in 1817. It was in Chawton that Jane either wrote or revised her novels, and from where she became known as a novelist four of her six novels were published in her lifetime – Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1816), and the remaining completed two, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, were published posthumously in 1818.

Now known as 'Jane Austen's House Museum', this late 15th or early 16th century property was a farm house until 1769, when it was bought by Thomas Knight to become part of his estate and was a pub called the New Inn until it became home to the manager of the estate. Jane's brother Edward had been adopted by the childless Knight family (and he changed his name to Knight), and as he had inherited the property he let the women live rent free here until Jane's sister Cassandra's death in 1845, after which it was divided into three cottages for farm workers.

'JANE AUSTEN'S HOME

GIVEN BY

THOMAS EDWARD CARPENTER, J.P. OF MILL HILL

IN MEMORY OF HIS SON

LIEUT. PHILIP JOHN CARPENTER,

EAST SURREY REGT.

KILLED IN ACTION, LAKE TRASIMENE, 1944

OPENED 1959 BY THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON, K. G.,

PRESIDENT OF THE JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY,

FOUNDED 1940 BY DOROTHY DARNELL, OF ALTON.'

'JANE AUSTEN

LIVED HERE FROM 1809–1817

AND HENCE ALL OF HER WORKS

WERE SENT INTO THE WORLD.

HER ADMIRERS IN THIS COUNTRY

AND IN AMERICA HAVE UNITED

TO ERECT THIS TABLET

SUCH ART AS HERS

CAN NEVER GROW OLD'

The Bakehouse.

 

This was separate from house itself, and baking, the washing of clothes, and salting of pigs would have been carried out here.

This donkey carriage belonged to the Austen women. Jane and Cassandra walked for a few hours each afternoon, but the carriage was used for shopping trips to nearby Alton.

The Austens paid a cook, and the housekeeping would have largely been the responsibility of Cassandra and Martha Lloyd.

Unfortunately, in the house itself photography is not allowed.

At the entrance, we were asked if we wanted a 'short guide' for £1, so I took a leaflet from the plastic tray marked 'Short Guides £1' and bought it. It wasn't a guide at all and was obviously a hell of a rip-off, but when I later spotted one free in Alton, I realized they'd placed free leaflets in the wrong holder. Plus, the ten-minute video on the half hour didn't happen. Let's be polite and say there is room for improvements.
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Once belonging to the Knight family and therefore passing into the inheritance of Edward, this is now Chawton House Library – see the link at the bottom of this post.

At the parish church, it's easy to find the graves.

And the matching tombstones stand side by side.

'IN

MEMORY OF

CASSANDRA AUSTEN

WHO DIED THE 18TH. DAY

OF JANUARY 1827,

AGED 87 YEARS.'

'IN

MEMORY OF

CASSANDRA ELIZABETH

AUSTEN,

WHO DIED THE 22ND. DAY

OF MARCH 1845

AGED 72 YEARS.'

'IN MEMORY OF

CASSANDRA AUSTEN,

DAUGHTER OF THE LATE

REVEREND THOMAS LEIGH

RECTOR OF HARPSDEN OXFORDSHIRE,

AND RELICT OF THE LATE

REVEREND GEORGE AUSTEN,

RECTOR OF STEVENTON HANTS,

SHE DIED THE 18TH DAY OF JANUARY 1827,

AGED 87 YEARS.

LEAVING FOUR SONS

AND ONE DAUGHTER SURVIVING NAMELY

EDWARD KNIGHT,

OF CHAWTON HOUSE IN THIS PARISH,

HENRY THOMAS AUSTEN,

FRANCIS WILLIAM AUSTEN,

CHARLES JOHN AUSTEN, AND

CASSANDRA ELIZABETH AUSTEN

WHO HAVE INSCRIBED THIS TABLET

TO THE MEMORY OF

AN AFFECTIONATE AND BELOVED PARENT.'

 'IN MEMORY OF

CASSANDRA ELIZABETH

AUSTEN

DAUGHTER OF THE LATE

REVEREND GEORGE AUSTEN

RECTOR OF SCREVETON

IN THIS COUNTY

DIED 22ND MARCH 1845 AGED 72'.

The plaque marking 200 years since Jane Austen's arrival in Chawton.

1 High Street, Alton, where Jane Austen dined with Rebecca Parker Terry following the death of her friend's father William.

4 High Street, the home of Jane Austen's doctor William Curtis.

 

'Site of Austen, Gray and Vincent

– the bank of Henry Austen

(brother of Jane Austen)

1806–1811'

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Chawton House Library.

Caroline Glyn in Chawton, Hampshire, and Her Great-grandmother Elinor

A plaque on the north wall of St Nicholas Church, Chawton, Hampshire, is dedicated to Caroline Glyn:

'In Loving Memory of

CAROLINE GLYN, Novelist.

Lived and wrote in this Village.

Died 15th May 1981.

Aged 33 years.

A Member of Poor Clares at the

Convent of St Mary, Stroud.

New South Wales, Australia.'

Her first novel, Don't Knock the Corners Off, was published in 1963 when she was 15, and is concerned with the loss of the self in the process of conformity in the education system. It was followed by Love and Joy in the Mabellon (1965) – about café life among the young in Paris – then The Unicorn Girl (1966), Heights and Depths (1968), The Tree (1969), The Tower and the Rising Tide (1971), and The Peacemaker: A Novel (1973). In Him Was Life (c. 1976) has a Foreword by the Bishop of Lincoln. The last published work in her lifetime was The Mountain at the End of Night: Stories of Dream and Vision (1977), and posthumously two books of poetry were published: Poems from the Dark (1982), and Chawton and Other Poems (2000). The books of poems were published by Outpost Publications (a vanity publisher) and Feather Books (which was run by John Waddinton-Feather of Shrewsbury) respectively, two small businesses which also published Caroline's mother Susan Glyn's poetry.

Caroline's parents led an itinerant life, and her father was Geoffrey Leo Davson, a second baronet who changed his name by deed poll to Anthony Glyn, who was also a writer. His parents were Edward Rae Davson and Margot (née Glyn), who was the daughter of Clayton Louis Glyn and Elinor Glyn (1864–1943), his grandmother being a scriptwriter and novelist, particularly infamous for the novel Three Weeks (1907), the sexual content of which caused a scandal at the time. Elinor's husband lived way beyond his means (hiring Brighton public baths for two days for his knee-length red-haired bride to swim naked in, for instance), and she later became the sole family earner.

Caroline led an altogether more restrained life, and a congenital illness led to her death in a convent at 33. A link at the bottom of the page is to an article on Caroline by Robert Temple, probably the only boyfriend she had before becoming a nun.

Grandson Anthony Glyn's Elinor Glyn: A Biography (London: Hutchinson, 1955), with 1927 artwork here by Philip Alexius de László.

Joan Hardwick's Addicted to Romance: The Life and Adventures of Elinor Glyn (London: Deutsch, 1994) is also well worth reading.

 

Addendum 1: I've just Googled "Caroline Glyn" and discovered that her

novel Don't Knock the Corners Off * (and no other) was translated into French by Francine Le Masson in 1964 as A bas l'école!, which translates literally as 'Down with School!', although this doesn't come anywhere near the subtlety of the English title.

Addendum 2: It's just struck me that 'Don't knock the corners off' is surely a reference to the French word écorner, but with a different meaning.

 

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Professor Robert Temple on Caroline Glyn, with links to US Life article and two of Glyn's dustjackets with blurbs.

Sir Anthony Glyn's obituary in the Independent.