Jane Austen’s House
Jane Austen is one of English literature’s greatest novelists. She spent the last years of her life in the village of Chawton, near Alton, where she wrote three of her greatest masterpieces. Her former home — less than 10 miles from the Pink House Bed & Breakfast — is now a museum.
Images courtesy of Visit Winchester
Austen’s charming redbrick house is a beautifully preserved example of seventeenth century country architecture, set in a quintessentially English village.
The house was bequeathed to Austen’s brother, Edward, who had taken over the management of the magnificent Chawton House estate from his adoptive parents. Austen moved to Chawton in 1809 and shared the house there with her sister Cassandra and their mother, both of whom are buried at the nearby St. Nicholas Church.
Although Austen herself died and is buried in Winchester, it is Chawton that is widely regarded as her literary home. In addition to writing Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion here, Austen also revised Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey here.
The museum at Jane Austen’s house tells the story this great English writer in the very rooms in which she wrote. The original furnishings on display include a patchwork quilt that Jane Austen made with her sister and mother. The museum also houses memorabilia relating to Austen’s two brothers and a display of period costume. The museum’s reference library holds rare Jane Austen literature, as well as original and foreign editions of her novels.
More information
- For more information on Jane Austen’s Chawton house, see the Jane Austen’s House Museum website.
- The Chawton House estate is now home to the Chawton House Library charity, and the superb house and gardens are also open to the public.
- The Chawton village website is a useful source of general information about the village.
- You will find additional resources about Jane Austen’s Hampshire on Hampshire County Council’s Jane Austen web pages.