Winchester–In Search of Jane Austen
So much more of interest has happened since we went to Winchester that I feel as
if I am backtracking to tell you the tale, but tell it I shall, since it
involves Jane Austen and Someplace Different.
Friday morning, I fiddled around too much in our room
ironing clothes and such making us late for our 8:45 train. We almost had to
jog the mile or so to the station to catch it. But, catch it we did. We pulled into Winchester a half an hour later, and I
immediately went to the tourist information place in the building next
door. It should have been the Tourist
Bad Information (TBI) place, as everything they told me about a bus to Chawton
was wrong.
It was a misty, grey day, and James and I took off on foot
for the bus station (“It’s pretty far. You’ll want a taxi,” said the TBI. It turned out to be an easy ten-minute
walk.) We got our tickets and the bus
driver told us where he would drop us and how to get to Jane Austen’s house
from there. (“There are no direct busses,” said TBI. “You’ll need to change in
Aylesford.”)
The bus was great—a double decker. James and I sat on the
top right in the front. That is the way
to travel. You are above the traffic and most of the hedges on the sides of the
road, so you can see what is going on and all the sights of the countryside.
Plus, looking out the front of the bus didn’t make me motion sick!
View from the bus
We got off at our stop, as did a German man, Thomas. We began trudging down the side of a busy
motorway in knee-high wet weeds. “This
doesn’t seem very safe or the right way to get to Jane Austen’s house,” we all
commented more than once. After a
ten-minute walk of following highway signs, we turned off onto another road, a
much less busy one. It turns out the
road we were now on used to be the main highway to London in Jane’s time and even up until 30
years ago when the motorway was built.
Ten minutes walk on this road brought us to the tiny town of Chawton.
Teacherperson in front of Jane Austen’ house
Chawton seemed to have about 15 buildings, so it was not too
hard to find Jane Austen’s house. This
was the house she lived in while she wrote her novels. It is not amazingly huge, but it did have six
bedrooms (but no bathrooms–hee hee). I would say it was smaller
than my house, maybe 2,000 square feet? Maybe not. The garden was on less than
an acre, but it was lovely. I spent a good bit of time chatting with Celia the
gardener. She was chatty and loved talking flowers with me.
Views of the Garden
Inside the house, the parlor had been converted into the
gift shop. “Mary’s piano” was there and
things to buy. The next room was the
dining parlor. Here is where Jane’s writing table sat. Supposedly she wrote all her books there, except the ones she wrote somewhere else.
Teacherperson in the dining parlor by said table
Upstairs were several bedrooms—Jane and Cassandra’s, her
parent’s, her brother’s, etc. Each room
had plaques and displays and little bits of this and that about the Austen
family.
A window on the first floor of the house, looking in
To be honest, it was rather dull. I wouldn’t recommend it,
even for the true JA fan (as I count myself among that number). A lot of the things belonged to other members
of the family, and there really weren’t that many things that were truly Jane
Austen’s. I see her better in her books than I did in her bedroom.
Look, I’m in Jane Austen’s bedroom!
When we finished (I finished chatting with Celia), we got
different directions to the bus stop and were there safely in under five
minutes. (They were the same directions
the bus driver gave us, but we didn’t quite understand which road to turn down
when we crossed the dual carriageway—er, yeah.)
With Celia the Gardener
We bussed back to Winchester,
quite hungry, and ate at Pizza Hut. (If
they have them in Great
Britain, they must be British, right?) We next stopped at the City Museum
(free!) where we viewed some Roman artifacts and such. The beleaguered
all-purpose museum employee wasn’t very informative. He said to two different
people, “I’m not an archeologist” in an accusatory fashion. Still, it was nice
enough.
Part of a Roman mosaic floor
Next, we went on to Winchester Cathedral.
This huge building
dates all the way back to Anglo-Saxon times and several of the really old kings
are buried here.
The Cathedral houses a lot of dead bishops and other dead
people including Jane Austen.
Here’s her grave.
Her memorial plaque
Her window
Also buried here (or rather outside with a memorial inside)
is Saint Swithun. Swithun was the Bishop
of Winchester. He said, “When I die, bury me with the common folk.” When he died, they buried him in the
cathedral. It then rained for the next
forty days until they moved his body outside.
Why am I telling you all this?
Because, today, June 15th, is Saint Swithun’s Day. Legend has
it that if it rains on St. Swithun’s Day, it will rain for the next 40
days. Did it rain today? Of course it
did! This is England!
Tidying up around St. Swithun’s memorial
Upstairs in the cathedral, there was a library with some
really old books on display (under glass). It was neat to see the illumination
of the Winchester Bible and a Bible in Latin that would have been chained to an
altar. We were going to join in to the Evensong service, but we had already
spent two hours in the Cathedral and hadn’t seen much more of the city, so we
left.
Off we went to see the house where Jane Austen died. You can’t tour it, but you can take a picture
of it.
Wolvesey
Castle was a big, ol’
castle in it’s time. We stomped around the ruins and were generally impressed
at how large it had been.
Sir Pigeon, Lord of Wolvesey Castle
We were going to go to the Great Hall to see King Arthur’s
Round Table (not really, but everyone pretends it is) and other goodies, but it
was after 5:00, and it was closed. Things close early in England.
Back on the train. Our 30 minute trip was delayed by 55
minutes due to another train being broken down on the track in front of us. I
had a newspaper and a British “US”
magazine (gossip and fashion) to read that someone had left behind, so I was
content. It’s amazing how little time
matters when you don’t have a schedule or any responsibilities!
We were really hungry when the train pulled in the station,
and we headed straight for our favorite pub, The Back of Beyond, for our final
supper in Reading.
Saturday morning, we were to head to Bath! (Which, of course, we did.)
Leaf I pinched from Jane Austen’s garden–call me Fagin.
