Jane Austen: Steventon to Winchester

Austen lived in Steventon from 1775 to 1801, in the rectory of her father, who was rector there for 44 years. In the evenings she read novels, often her own, aloud to her family. The house where she wrote Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility was pulled down around 1824. An old lime tree still marks the site. Nearby stands the 13th-century church of St Nicholas, where her father was rector.

場所の精度: The rectory no longer stands; the pin marks the village of Steventon, not the exact spot of the lime tree.

訪問のヒント: The lime tree marks the rectory site; St Nicholas church is in the village.

Bath is where Austen's family moved when her father retired. The Pump Room was the meeting place of fashionable society and a setting in Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. It was where "Every creature in Bath [...] was to be seen in the room at different periods of the fashionable hours". In Persuasion, Admiral Croft retires to Bath to take the waters because of his gout. Screen adaptations of both novels were filmed in the room.

訪問のヒント: The Pump Room stands in the centre of Bath.

Austen lived in Bath with her parents and sister from 1801 to 1805. Both of her Bath novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, mention the Assembly Rooms, where in the season at least two balls a week were held. The rooms are now run by the National Trust. The BBC filmed its adaptation of Northanger Abbey here in 1986, and its Persuasion in 1995.

訪問のヒント: Run by the National Trust as a venue for exhibitions and concerts.

Her brother Edward offered his mother and sisters a more settled life, and on 7 July 1809 Jane, Cassandra and their mother moved into a cottage in Chawton. Austen had three novels in draft and revised them here before they were published. Here she also wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion. The house became a museum in July 1949. Among its furniture is a Muzio Clementi pianoforte dated 1813, similar to the piano she owned.

訪問のヒント: The house is now the Jane Austen's House museum.

In May 1817 Cassandra and Henry took Austen to Winchester for treatment. She died there on 18 July 1817, aged 41, and was buried in the north aisle of the cathedral nave. Her tombstone makes no mention of her novels, but a later brass tablet describes her as "known to many by her writings". There is also a memorial window in her honour by C E Kempe. Many visitors still come to see her resting place.

訪問のヒント: Her grave is in the north aisle of the nave.