Jane Austen

Contents

9 Maps 11 Introduction 1 12 13 16 16 17 18 20

Jane Austen’s Life Growing up in Steventon The move to Bath Financial troubles Writing again Life after death A wet white shirt

2 22 23 24 24 25 25

England in Austen’s Time Mad King George Pleasure at home Unrest abroad Action in the background The position of women

3 30 Hampshire and Surroundings 31 Steventon 36 Deane 37 Ashe 40 Chawton – Jane Austen’s House Museum 48 Alton 51 Upper Farringdon 55 Basingstoke 56 The Vyne 57 Monk Sherborne 58 Stratfield Saye 59 Oakley Hall 60 Kintbury 61 Ibthorpe 63 Winchester 68 Southampton 72 Portsmouth

4 76 Reading, Oxford, Cheltenham and Surroundings 77 Reading 78 Basildon Park 80 Harpsden 81 Dorney Court 82 Eton College 83 Hall Barn 84 Chenies Manor 86 Old Rectory, Albury 86 Oxford 89 Claydon 90 Chicheley Hall 91 Edgcote House 92 Broughton Castle 94 Adlestrop 97 Stanway House 97 Sudeley Castle and Gardens 99 Cheltenham 5 102 London and Surroundings 103 64 Sloane Street 104 23 Hans Place 106 A walk through Mayfair 111 St James’s 113 National Portrait Gallery 115 10 Henrietta Street 115 Covent Garden 117 Somerset House 118 Twinings 118 Lincoln’s Inn 119 Sutton’s Hospital in ­Charterhouse 120 Gracechurch Street 121 Brunswick Square 121 Keppel Street 121 Fitzroy Square CONTENTS

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7 172 Bath, Salisbury and Surroundings 173 Bath 124 St John-at-Hampstead 202 Charlcombe 125 Fenton House 203 Weston-super-Mare 126 Kenwood House 204 Clifton 127 The Queen’s House 205 Blaise Castle 129 Royal Hospital for Seamen 206 Dyrham Park 129 National Maritime Museum 207 Luckington 130 St Paul’s, ­Deptford 208 Sheldon Manor 130 Osterley Park and House 209 Lacock 132 Syon Park 210 Neston Park 133 Ham House 211 Great Chalfield Manor 134 Wrotham Park 212 The George Inn 134 Brocket Hall 213 Stourhead Garden 214 Wilton House 6 136 Kent, Surrey and Surroundings 216 Mompesson House 137 Ramsgate 218 Trafalgar Park 139 Deal 122 St Marylebone 123 British Library

140 Goodnestone Park Gardens 142 Canterbury 144 Godmersham Park 149 Chilham 155 Wrotham 155 Dartford 156 The Red House, Sevenoaks 158 Tonbridge 160 Tunbridge Wells 161 Groombridge Place 162 Squerryes Court 164 Box Hill 165 Leith Hill 166 Great Bookham 166 St Mary’s Church, Send 167 Loseley Park 169 Worthing 171 Beachy Head

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8 220 The Southwest Coast 221 Lulworth Cove 222 Came House 222 Crichel House 223 Evershot 224 East Coker 225 Montacute House 227 Mapperton House and Gardens 228 Seatown 228 Lyme Regis 237 Colyton 238 The Austens at the Seaside 240 Compton Castle 240 Berry Pomeroy 242 Flete Estate 243 Saltram 244 Charlestown 246 Hartland Abbey 247 Clovelly

CONTENTS

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Maps

32 Hampshire and surroundings 34 Steventon and surroundings 54 Walk from Chawton to Farringdon and back 65 Winchester 78 Reading, Oxford, Cheltenham and surroundings 104 London 107 The Mayfair district 138 Kent, Surrey and surroundings

148 The Chilham-GodmershamChilham walk 174 Bath, Salisbury and surroundings 176 Bath 186 Walk to Beechen Cliff 222 The Southwest coast of England 230 Lyme Regis 249 Central England 268 The Peak District and surroundings 284 Yorkshire

MAPS

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MAPS

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Introduction

I first became acquainted with Jane Austen in the 1990s, when I bought a well-thumbed copy of Pride and Prejudice at a flea market. At the time, I didn’t know I had just purchased one of the best-loved novels in English literature. I read the book in one go.

From that moment, I was hooked and became a true ‘Janeite’ – as Jane Austen’s most fanatic fans are called. In search of others who shared my passion, I started a Jane Austen website, and got to know many Austen lovers from Europe and beyond.

Over the years, people increasingly asked me for advice about creating Jane Austen tours. I came to realise that there was no guidebook out there focused on locations related to Austen and her work. While on vacation in Lyme Regis, which I was primarily visiting because of its associations with Jane, I decided to write one myself.

In Jane Austen’s England, you’ll find all of the places that were important to Jane Austen: where she lived, visited family and friends, went on holiday and more. The book also includes film locations used in recent television and cinema adaptations. It starts with the region that she knew and probably loved the best: Hampshire.

For Janeites, this travel guide is the perfect companion for planning and getting the most out of their own Jane Austen ‘pilgrimage’. But even if you aren’t a dedicated fan, and just love everything English, this book is still for you. Jane Austen’s England will guide you to some of the country’s most beautiful and surprising national treasures, while also helping you to learn a bit more about the life and works of one of her greatest literary ones.

Happy travels!

Karin Quint

INTRODUCTION

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1 Jane Austen’s Life

CHAWTON – WHERE JANE AUSTEN SPENT HER MOST PROFESSIONALLY PRODUCTIVE YEARS.

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I

n a letter to her prospective daughter-in-law, Mary Lloyd, Mrs Cassandra Austen wrote in 1796, ‘I look forward to you as a real comfort to me in my old age, when Cassandra has gone to Shropshire, and Jane – the Lord knows where’. This is clearly the sigh of a parent who wonders what in the world will become of her child.

It wasn’t strange, in that day and age, for Mrs Austen to worry about her youngest daughter. In 1796, Jane was almost 21, and more interested in writing stories than finding a suitable husband. She had a sharp and ironic sense of humour that could well scare off potential suitors.

Even worse: she was ambitious. Jane wanted to be a writer. She wanted her books – which she later called her ‘children’ – to be read and praised by others. She wished for the personal independence and money that could be earned writing novels.

It was an almost impossible ambition for a woman of her time. Mrs Austen could do nothing else but hope that Jane would end up catching a husband someday.

When her daughter was born in Steventon on 16 December 1775, Mrs Austen could perhaps have suspected that life would go a little differently for Jane.

The winter weather that year was so extreme that the parents didn’t even dare take little ‘Jenny’ to the church to be baptised. Her baptism happened four months later, once the frigid winter finally ended.

In the meantime, her father George Austen – a clergyman – baptised Jane at home. ‘We have now another girl, a present plaything for her sister Cassy and a future companion’, he proudly wrote to a family member.

Jane was the Austens’ seventh child: five sturdy boys and gentle Cassandra had preceded her. After Jane, Mrs Austen would bear one more son.

Growing up in Steventon In many middle- and upper-class families at that time, it was common to turn the early care and raising of children over to others. We know that three

JANE AUSTEN’S LIFE

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THE TAB LET TH A T M A R KS J A NE ’S GR AVE .

And another World War later, Winston Churchill asked to have Pride and Prejudice read aloud to him when he was ill in bed. The England in Jane’s books no longer existed, but it was a place that Churchill, and many other Britons, nostalgically longed for.

A wet white shirt Once her books were discovered by TV and filmmakers, Jane’s fame reached a level that can probably never be undone. Her themes proved to be universal, and her storylines became blueprints for various romantic comedies.

Every film in which the main characters initially can’t stand each other, but end up in love, owes a debt to Jane Austen.

Pride and Prejudice was the first novel to be filmed: first in 1938 for TV, and two years later it hit the big screen with Laurence Olivier as the arrogant Mr Darcy. That was the kick-off for a constant stream of films based on Jane’s work.

The undisputed high point was the BBC’s six-part Pride and Prejudice miniseries, broadcast in 1995. The script was written by Andrew Davies, who thought the story could use a bit more sex appeal. He made his Mr Darcy, sweaty after a hot horse ride, dive almost fully clothed into a pond to cool off.

Shortly after – still in his wet, white shirt – he encounters Elizabeth Bennet on the grounds. It’s been described as ‘the best scene that Jane Austen never wrote’.

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After the hugely popular miniseries, the BBC, commercial broadcaster ITV and Hollywood continued making enthusiastic use of Austen classics.

Since then, we’ve seen new versions of Emma (3x), Northanger Abbey (1x), Mansfield Park (2x), Persuasion (2x) and Sense and Sensibility (2x). They even found Jane’s life interesting: in Miss Austen Regrets and Becoming Jane, the writer herself has the starring role. Ten years after Mr Darcy’s famous dive in the pond, a new version of Pride and Prejudice hit cinemas: Keira Knightley’s Elizabeth Bennet introduced a whole new generation to Jane’s most famous novel.

Jane Austen remains a source COLIN F IR TH AS M R D A R C Y . of inspiration to this day. New books about her life and work, or novels inspired by her own writing, appear almost weekly. Her characters live on in countless fanfiction stories and mashups, some with the most bizarre titles, like Pride and Promiscuity and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters.

The internet has further fuelled the hype, judging by the many blogs, socialmedia pages and forums dedicated to Austen. Every fresh item about Jane – whether it’s her ring being sold to popstar Kelly Clarkson, or her image being selected for the new £10 banknote – is world news. It’s more than clear: the end of Jane’s popularity is nowhere in sight.

Would you like to read more about Jane Austen and her life? See page 307 for recommendations.

JANE AUSTEN’S LIFE

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2 England in Austen’s Time

THE J ANE A U S TE N F E S TIVAL TA KE S P LA CE EVE R Y Y E A R I N B A T H .

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ou might not guess it from her books, but Jane Austen lived in a turbulent period of British history. She’s often been criticised for being oblivious to important events and issues of her times. But anyone who reads between the lines in her work can see that she was well aware of what was happening in the world. In Mansfield Park, there are references to the slave trade; Persuasion gives us a glimpse into the doings of the Royal Navy; and the militia in Pride and Prejudice leaves Meryton for the coastal city of Brighton for good reason – arch-enemy France was waiting to pounce from across the Channel.

Mad King George For most of Jane’s life, Great Britain was ruled by King George III. He was a mild, simple and sober man, but his health was not good. He suffered not only from a variety of physical complaints, but mental ones as well. These became so severe that his eldest son George was appointed Regent in 1811. This is why the years that followed came to be referred to as the ‘Regency period’.

The Prince Regent was nothing like his father. He was a vain and extravagant womaniser who loved to party. He married Princess Caroline of Brunswick only because his father promised to pay off his debts if he did so.

It was an unhappy match; the Prince and Caroline couldn’t stand each other.

They had one child – Princess Charlotte – who married the future king of Belgium, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. Their only child, a son, was stillborn, and Charlotte died the next day.

George III died in 1820, and the Prince Regent was crowned King George IV. Although this officially marked the end of the Regency, the term has gener-

THE PRINCE REGE NT W AS A VAIN A ND E X TR AVAGA NT W OM A N I SE R .

ENGLAND IN AUSTEN’S TIME

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Cheltenham I am very glad you find so much to be satisfied with at Cheltenham. While the Waters agree, every thing else is trifling. – Jane to Cassandra, 8 September 1816 Cheltenham’s history as a health spa began in 1716 when the first of numerous mineral springs was discovered. The waters were considered a remedy for a wide range of complaints, including lack of appetite, constipation and poor digestion, as well as spleen, liver and gallbladder problems. King George III himself took a cure there in 1788, which ensured a steadily increasing stream of visitors to TH E R OY AL CRE SC E N T I N C H E LT E N H A M H A D Cheltenham in the following A LR E A D Y S TOO D FO R A F E W Y E A R S W H E N J A N E VIS ITE D TH E C I T Y I N 1 81 6 . decades.

Various Austen family members visited Cheltenham for their health. Henry was there in 1808, hoping to find a cure for what Jane called ‘his tiresome complaint’. It’s unknown what precisely that complaint was. James and his wife Mary were there for at least a month around November 1813, with James’ poor health the likely reason.

By May 1816, the symptoms of Jane’s illness were so problematic that she and Cassandra went to Cheltenham for a number of weeks. A few months later, Cassandra went again – this time with her sister-in-law Mary. ‘But how very much Cheltenham is to be preferred in May!’ Jane wrote in answer to one of her sister’s letter sent from there. Mary and Cassandra stayed in Mrs Potter’s boarding house in High Street. They paid three guineas a week, which Jane found exorbitant. ‘Mrs Potter charges for the name of the High St’, she commented.

In the days when the Austens visited, Cheltenham was still growing. Many of the Regency-era buildings you see today weren’t constructed until around 1820-1830.

The Royal Crescent, behind the Royal Well Road, was already there when Jane arrived at Cheltenham in 1816. This row of houses in the shape of a half-moon (crescent) was built in 1805. It was eventually supposed to become a complete circle (circus), but was never completed. Just like the Royal READING, OXFORD, CHELTENHAM AND SURROUNDINGS

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Crescent in Bath (see p. 195), the one in Cheltenham was a highly desirable place to live, although its size indicates that it was built for buyers of more modest financial means.

In 1823, the possibility of turning the Royal Crescent into a circus disappeared forever. On the ground where the other half should go, a large, elegant housing complex was built with its back to the crescent and the façades facing Promenade. These are considered to be some of the most beautiful Regency-era buildings in Cheltenham. Today, they house the Municipal Offices and Tourist Information Centre.

Further down the Promenade are the Imperial Gardens, where visitors to the Imperial Spa, which opened in 1818 on the spot where Queen’s Hotel now stands, could stroll after drinking the waters. Once you’re past the park, turn right into Fauconberg Road and you’ll come to the imposing Cheltenham Ladies’ College. This is where the city’s first spring – the Royal Well – and its facilities were located. The building, erected on a small square, had a Long Room with a balcony where musicians played every morning.

If you continue straight on after the Imperial Gardens instead of taking a right, you’ll come to Montpellier Walk, with Montpellier Arcade at its head.

This area was built between 1830 and 1840 as a shopper’s paradise for spa visitors. The shopfronts on Montpellier Walk are decorated with Caryatids – pillars shaped like armless women – inspired by those at the Erechtheion Temple in the Athens Acropolis.

At the end of Montpellier Walk you come to Montpellier Spa, one of Cheltenham’s most popular springs. The Pump Room, where water was pumped up for visitors to drink, was originally a square building with a porch. It was replaced in 1817 by a new Pump Room featuring a beautiful dome. The building now houses a bank, but you may visit during business hours to view the interior.

It’s not clear which of Cheltenham’s springs Jane frequented. Considering that she and Cassandra probably stayed in High Street, however, the Royal Well or Montpellier Spa would be most likely.

Pittville Cheltenham’s growing popularity, combined with the wide-open building possibilities around the city, drew many investors. One was Joseph Pitt, a successful banker of humble origins. In 1820, he bought a large tract of land north of Cheltenham to build a new spa town, which he modestly planned to name Pittville.

He started in 1825 by building an elegant Pump Room where visitors could drink the mineral waters, socialise, and see and be seen. Pitt had a magnificent building designed, with a huge colonnade of Ionic columns and an impressively ornate domed ceiling. It was the last – and largest – of Chel-

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St James’s Square

THE MAY FAIR DIS TR ICT.

This rude, conceited young man later turns out to be Robert Ferrars, the younger brother of Edward Ferrars, who Elinor is in love with.

Gray’s was located at number 41, where Pegasus House now stands.

If you retrace your steps and turn right onto Piccadilly, you’ll pass the Royal Academy in Burlington House. Walk through the arch into the courtyard.

The building straight ahead was also there in Jane’s time; its two wings were added later.

In June 1814, Burlington House was the site of a glittering celebration to mark the defeat of Napoleon. The Tsar of Russia, the King of Prussia and the Prince Regent were guests of honour. Charming, socially adept Henry Austen also – somehow – managed to get an invitation. ‘Oh, what a Henry!’ Jane reacted, in a mixture of wonder, pride and amusement.

Next door is Burlington Arcade, a Georgian covered shopping street dating to 1819. In Jane’s lifetime, it was the location of The White Horse Cellar inn.

People who travelled to London from the west and south of England by public coach – as Jane regularly did – would disembark here.

Turn right into Old Bond Street, which was just as much a retail mecca in the 18th and 19th centuries as it is today. This is where Mr Elton has Harriet Smith’s portrait framed in Emma. In Sense and Sensibility, the Dashwood sisters often shop there with Mrs Jennings, and it’s also where the unfaithful Willoughby has rented rooms. When Marianne is ill, he confesses to Elinor that he often saw – and had to avoid – the sisters there.

You would be surprised to hear how often I watched you, how often I was on the point of falling in with you. I have entered many a shop to avoid your

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sight, as the carriage drove by. Lodging as I did in Bond Street, there was hardly a day in which I did not catch a glimpse of one or other of you (…)

Turn right into Burlington Gardens and then left into Cork Street. Here, Jane wrote one of her earliest surviving letters. While staying at an inn on the street with her family, she scribbled a short message to Cassandra: ‘Here I am once more in this Scene of Dissipation & vice, and I begin already to find my morals corrupted.’ From the rest of the note, it’s clear that 21-year-old Jane found this scene of ‘Dissipation & vice’ extremely interesting. ‘Edward & Frank are both gone out to seek their fortunes; the latter is to return soon & help us seek ours’, she writes excitedly. She was obviously eager to head outdoors. ‘God Bless You – I must leave off, for we are going out’, she hastily finishes.

Continue walking through Cork Street. At the end, turn left into Clifford Street and take a right into New Bond Street. The next right turn is Conduit Street: this is where the Middletons stay while in London, and where Sir John Middleton invites almost twenty young people to the house for an impromptu ball.

Turning left into St George Street brings you to St George’s – the church for fashionable high society in the 19th century. In Mansfield Park, status-conscious Mary Crawford would like to see her brother Henry marry Fanny Price here. In trying to persuade Fanny to allow her and Henry to take her from Portsmouth back to Mansfield Park, Mary writes: ‘I should like the scheme, and we would make a little circuit, and shew you Everingham in our way, and perhaps you would not mind passing through London, and seeing the inside of St George’s, Hanover Square.’

St George’s was built between 1721 and 1724, and has a striking altarpiece with a painting of the Last Supper by William Kent. In the church to the left, you’ll find a collage of important events in St George’s history. The writer George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) was married here, for example, and the composer Georg Friedrich Händel was a regular worshipper. > ST GEORGE’S, St George Street, stgeorgeshanoversquare.org. Open: Mon–Tue & Thu–Fri 8.00–16.00, Wed 8.00–18.00, Sun 8.00–12.00. Underground: Oxford Circus, Bond Street.

Exiting St George’s, take a right and walk to Hanover Square. In Sense and Sensibility, this is where the Palmers – she cheerful and silly, he surly and too intelligent for such a wife – are staying in London. The square was developed in the early 18th century by the Earl of Scarborough, a retired general, who named it and the street in honour of the new King George I, who hailed from Hanover. Today, there isn’t much left of the original Georgian buildings; the square is primarily businesses.

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SIR WILLIAM LUCAS FROM PRIDE AND PREJUDICE WAS PRESENTED AT ST JAMES’S PALACE.

When you walk to the end of Albemarle Street, you’re back at Piccadilly. To explore the St James’s district, cross the road into St James’s Street.

St James’s Jane was very familiar with London, and knew exactly where to put her characters so that it would say something about their character. The snobbish Caroline Bingley and Louisa Hurst don’t live in one of the city’s most expensive streets in Mayfair without reason, and Willoughby – up to his ears in debt – lives in the most popular shopping street.

The St James’s district is more suited to the chivalrous Colonel Brandon and principled Edward Ferrars from Sense and Sensibility. By tradition, the district is a ‘masculine’ domain: it’s where the city’s most exclusive gentlemen’s clubs have always been located, and there are still a remarkable number of shops catering exclusively to men.

When Elinor Dashwood tells Edward Ferrars that Colonel Brandon wishes to offer him a living, it’s made clear that Brandon is staying in St James’s Street, which leads to St James’s Palace: ‘“Colonel Brandon, I think, lodges in St James Street”, said he, soon afterwards, rising from his chair. Elinor told him the number of the house. “I must hurry away then, to give him those thanks which you will not allow me to give you; to assure him that he has made me a very — an exceedingly happy man.”’

St James’s Palace is still a royal residence and closed to the public. The palace was built between 1531 and 1536 by Henry VIII, and was used for a variety of LONDON AND SURROUNDINGS

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royal functions. Sir William Lucas from Pride and Prejudice was elevated to the knighthood and afterwards presented at St James’s.

At the end of St James’s Street to the left is Pall Mall, where Edward Ferrars has lodgings. It’s also where Colonel Brandon overhears people in a bookshop gossiping about Willoughby’s engagement to the rich Miss Grey. On the left side of the street, you pass Crown Passage, a small alley with little shops, some of which still have their Georgian bay windows. It’s also where you’ll find The Red Lion, one of the oldest pubs in London.

In Jane’s time, 52 Pall Mall housed the British Institution – an important picture gallery. She went there in May 1813 to view a Joshua Reynolds retrospective, and to see if she could recognise any characters from Pride and Prejudice in the portraits. Mrs Darcy was apparently difficult to find. ‘I have no chance of her in the collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s Paintings which is now shewing in Pall Mall, & which we are also to visit’, she writes to Cassandra.

She did, however, see Mrs Bingley at another exhibition in Spring Gardens.

‘Mrs. Bingley’s is exactly herself, size, shaped face, features & sweetness: there never was a greater likeness. She is dressed in a white gown, with green ornaments, which convinces me of what I had always supposed, that green was a favourite colour with her.’

In 1868, the British Institution building was demolished and replaced by the Marlborough Club, a society founded by the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). Although the museum is gone, it’s possible to see the exact same Reynolds exhibition that Jane did. It was painstakingly reconstructed online by the University of Texas in 2013. Experience it yourself at whatjanesaw.org.

Continue following Pall Mall and turn right into Carlton Gardens. There you’ll find Carlton House Terrace, an attractive, classical-style complex overlooking St James’s Park. During Jane’s lifetime, this was the location of Carlton House, the residence of the Prince Regent, who was a great fan of Jane’s books. James Stanier Clarke, the prince’s librarian, invited her to visit Carlton House in November 1815, and gave her a personal tour.

For her part, Jane was no fan of the loose-living prince. When the librarian told her that she had permission to dedicate her next book to his employer, she assumed it was a hint she could ignore. But her publisher, John Murray, knew exactly what the comment meant. ‘Permission’ was more or less a command. If Emma, which was on the point of going to the printer, was not dedicated to the Prince Regent, it would be considered a major insult.

Jane thought to resolve the issue by simply putting ‘Emma, Dedicated by Permission to H.R.H. The Prince Regent’ on the title page. But Murray intervened again, and it turned into quite a composition: ‘To his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, This Work is, by His Royal Highness’s Permission,

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Haddon Hall stood empty for two centuries, until the 9th Duke began an extensive renovation at the start of the 20th century.

Today Lord Edward Manners, the second son of the 10th Duke, lives there with his family.

A multi-faceted inn The crew of Pride & Prejudice transformed the Banqueting Hall and the Parlour into the inn at Lambton, where Elizabeth Bennet stays with her aunt and uncle Gardiner. They filled the large hall with tables and chairs, and concealed sections of the Gothic windows to create a cosy taproom.

In the Parlour, which became Elizabeth’s bedroom, they placed ROMANTIC HAD D ON H A LL H AS OF TE N BE E N a wood-panelled screen. After she US ED AS A FILM LOCATION. has received her sister Jane’s letter with news of Lydia and Wickham’s elopement, she keeps walking behind the screen in an effort to hide her tears from the Gardiners and Mr Darcy who are sitting there. Good use was also made of these spaces in Death Comes to Pemberley. The Banqueting Hall became the (extremely large) living room of the magistrate, Sir Selwyn Hardcastle. During Wickham’s trial, Darcy stays in Derby at an inn – the Parlour became his room.

We see him there at the window, writing to Elizabeth. Haddon Hall’s kitchen is seen as the Green Man Inn, where Colonel Fitzwilliam meets Mrs Younge.

The story goes that Jane once visited Haddon Hall, but no evidence of this has been found. > HADDON HALL, Bakewell, Derbyshire, tel. 01629 812 855, haddonhall. co.uk. Open: mid-April–Sept daily 10.30–17.00; October Sat–Mon 10.30– 17.00; 1st three weeks of Dec, 10.30–16.00.

Bakewell She wished him to know that she had been assured of his absence before she came to the place, and accordingly began by observing, that his arrival had been very unexpected — ‘for your housekeeper,’ she added, ‘informed us that you would certainly not be here till tomorrow; and indeed, before

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THE PEAK DISTRICT AND SURROUNDINGS

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LONGNOR: THE INN AT LAMBTON IN PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (1995) WAS HERE ON THE LEFT.

Longnor This simple village, home only to a few shops and coffee bars, is briefly seen as Lambton in Pride and Prejudice (1995). Elizabeth Bennet and her aunt and uncle are staying at an inn, and Mr Darcy brings his sister there to introduce them. You’ll find the building near Longnor’s car park on High Street – the main road that runs right through the village. Walk into Chapel Street (to the left of the Longnor Craft Centre and Coffee Shop) and you’ll soon see the ‘inn’ looking just as it did in the mini-series, with its protruding wood awning and windows. It now houses a gallery – the Dragon’s Back Studio. The owner says the building is still regularly photographed by Pride and Prejudice fans from around the world.

It’s appropriate this building was used as an inn for the mini-series. Back in Jane’s time (and probably long before), that’s exactly what it was – the Olde Red Bull Inn. No filming took place inside. All the interior scenes were shot in the studio.

Ramshaw Rocks and The Roaches Aunt and uncle Gardiner watch anxiously as Elizabeth (Jennifer Ehle) nimbly climbs up over large boulders to get a stunning view over the Derbyshire landscape. This scene in the BBC’s Pride and Prejudice (1995) was filmed at the Ramshaw Rocks formation on the southwest edge of The Peak District, near the town of Leek. It’s a popular walking and hiking area that offers many fantastic views over the national park.

THE PEAK DISTRICT AND SURROUNDINGS

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Follow in the footsteps of England’s most beloved Regency author. Region by region, Jane Austen’s England explores the places that shaped her life and work, and visits the filming locations, museums and hotels inspired by her remarkable literary legacy.

Immerse yourself in Austen’s England.

ISBN: 978-1-78884-035-4

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£15.00/$19.95

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