Share...Chawton, Spring 2010
It seems worthwhile to make a special page for our visits to Chawton this spring.
"Our Chawton home, how much we find
already in it, to our mind;
And how convinced that when complete
it will all other houses beat,
that ever have been made or mended,
with rooms concise, or rooms distended!"
Jane to Frank, July 1809
Frank Underwood and Nick Daisley had visited the village, both to re-establish contact with the good people at the Cottage museum, and to explore the music volumes, both manuscripts and printed items, held in the library at the Chawton estate house (which came into the hands of her brother Edward Austen Knight).
We then made a group visit to the village on 27th March 2010, on what proved to be by and large a very fine spring day, and were honoured to be greeted by members of the Hampshire Regency Dancers, in full costume!
Frank and Christine made music for the visitors on the Clementi piano in the Cottage, as the two groups went around the house and garden to drink in the atmosphere of the place.
Eventually most of the group progressed to the Chawton estate house - a function was taking place at the house so we were unfortunately not able to enter or to see the gardens, but we had a good look at the church in the grounds of the House - it post-dates the Austen era, and its most interesting feature for us was the graves of Cassandra and the sisters' mother in the churchyard.
designed by it-alternative.