Chawton House
Encyclopedia
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
in the village of Chawton
Chawton
Chawton is a village and civil parish in the East Hampshire district of Hampshire, England. It is 1.6 miles southwest of Alton, just south of the A31 which runs between Farnham and Winchester. The village is famous as the home of Jane Austen for the last eight years of her life...
in Hampshire
Hampshire
Hampshire is a county on the southern coast of England in the United Kingdom. The county town of Hampshire is Winchester, a historic cathedral city that was once the capital of England. Hampshire is notable for housing the original birthplaces of the Royal Navy, British Army, and Royal Air Force...
. It was formerly the home of Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen 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 and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
's brother, Edward Austen Knight, and is now a library
Library
In a traditional sense, a library is a large collection of books, and can refer to the place in which the collection is housed. Today, the term can refer to any collection, including digital sources, resources, and services...
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
Sandra Lerner
Sandy Lerner was a co-founder of Cisco Systems . After leaving Cisco, she was a founder of Urban Decay cosmetics, and an advocate of animal welfare....
, co-founder of Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems
Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...
.
The house has been extensively restored and is now The Centre for the Study of Early English Women's Writing, 1600-1830, which runs study programmes in association with the University of Southampton
University of Southampton
The University of Southampton is a British public university located in the city of Southampton, England, a member of the Russell Group. The origins of the university can be dated back to the founding of the Hartley Institution in 1862 by Henry Robertson Hartley. In 1902, the Institution developed...
.
It incorporates Chawton House Library
Chawton House Library
Chawton House Library is located at Chawton House, Chawton, Hampshire.The Library is now The Centre for the Study of Early English Women's Writing, 1600-1830,...
, opened in 2003, a collection of over 9,000 books together with related original manuscripts, formerly located in Redmond, Washington
Redmond, Washington
Redmond is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located east of Seattle. The population was 54,144 at the 2010 census,up from 45,256 in 2000....
, 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.
Jane Austen's House
Jane Austen's House MuseumJane Austen's House Museum
Jane Austen's House Museum is a small private museum in the village of Chawton near Alton in Hampshire. It occupies the 17th century house in which novelist Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life and where she wrote Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion.Jane Austen's House Museum was...
is a large 17th-century house in the centre of the village of Chawton, preserved in her memory, where she spent the last eight years of her life. It is a museum, owned by the Jane Austen Memorial Trust since 1947.
The two houses, Chawton House and Jane Austen's House, are entirely separately run charities. This may not be clear to first time visitors who believe the two sites to be working in concert with each other.
Sources
- Wheeler, Michael. "Chawton House Library: Transforming the Literary Landscape." Early Modern Literary Studies 6.3 (January, 2001): 9.1-16
- Laura Tennant "A WRITER AT LARGE: Sandy Lerner's Persuasion". Independent on Sunday, The. Jul 20, 2003. FindArticles.com. 03 Jan. 2008. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4159/is_20030720/ai_n12741978