Chawton

Coordinates: 51°07′58″N 0°59′19″W / 51.13271°N 0.98873°W / 51.13271; -0.98873

Chawton is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. The village lies within the South Downs National Park and is famous as the home of Jane Austen for the last eight years of her life.

In 2000, Chawton had a population of around 380. It is within the census area of Downland which has 2,149 people.

Village History

Chawton's recorded history begins in the Domesday survey of 1086. In the 13th century, there was a royal manor house. The owner, John St John, served as deputy to Edward I in Scotland. Henry III visited the manor on over forty occasions. The descendants of John Knight, who built the present Chawton House at the time of the Armada (1588), added to it and modified the landscape in ways that reflect changes in politics, religion and taste. One of those descendants was Elizabeth Knight, whose progresses were marked by the ringing of church bells and whose two husbands both had to adopt her surname. Later in the 18th century, Jane Austen's brother Edward Austen Knight (who had been adopted by the Knights) succeeded, and in 1809 was able to move his mother and sisters to a cottage in the village.

Chawton House

Chawton House is a grade ll* listed Elizabethan manor house in the village of Chawton in Hampshire. It was formerly the home of Jane Austen's brother, Edward Austen Knight, and is now a library and study centre.

In 1992 a 125-year lease on the house was purchased for £1.25 million by a foundation established by Sandra Lerner and Leonard Bosack, co-founders of Cisco Systems.

The house has been extensively restored and is now The Centre for the Study of Early Women's Writing, 1600-1830, which runs study programmes in association with the University of Southampton. It incorporates Chawton House Library, opened in 2003, a collection of over 9,000 books together with related original manuscripts, formerly located in Redmond, Washington, U.S.

Chawton House is the venue of the Annual General Meeting of the Jane Austen Society of the United Kingdom. In 2003 the Jane Austen Society of North America held its 25th Anniversary AGM in the grounds of Chawton House.

The House

The present Chawton House was built c.1580, principally by John Knight. Based on a previous Manor house owned by the Knight family since 1551, it was subsequently extended and altered c.1655 and again in the 18th and 19th centuries. The house is built of flint with stone dressings and a tiled roof. The 17th-century south front has two storeys with an attic and three gables.

Jane Austen

Jane Austen (/ˈdʒeɪn ˈɒstɪn/; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature. Her realism, biting irony and social commentary as well as her acclaimed plots have gained her historical importance among scholars and critics.

Austen lived her entire life as part of a close-knit family located on the lower fringes of the English landed gentry. She was educated primarily by her father and older brothers as well as through her own reading. The steadfast support of her family was critical to her development as a professional writer. From her teenage years into her thirties she experimented with various literary forms, including an epistolary novel which she then abandoned, wrote and extensively revised three major novels and began a fourth. From 1811 until 1816, with the release of Sense and Sensibility (1811), Pride and Prejudice (1813), Mansfield Park (1814) and Emma (1815), she achieved success as a published writer. She wrote two additional novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, both published posthumously in 1818, and began a third, which was eventually titled Sanditon, but died before completing it.