Where Jane Austen spent her last days

 

8 College Street (taken on a visit to Winchester in March this year)

The opening of 8 College Street, Winchester where Jane Austen lived out her last days is rare. In fact I don't think the house has ever been open to the public before. I have walked past the house, and taken photos outside so many times, but I never expected to go inside.

It was luck that I found out about it. Myself and friend had visited Winchester College (click the link for more on Jane and the college/house) last year and we found details of the opening there. The college owns the building which has been let out to staff for a good many years (once the ground floor was a shop, which is why the window is larger). With the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth this year, there are many events planned, not only on Winchester, but in Southampton and other places Jane had spent time. I booked tickets for the house as soon as I returned home last year, as I knew this would be popular. I was right. Tickets have sold out, despite a release of new dates, but there is a waiting list.

So, it was with excitement that my friend and I made our way to the college where we met our guide. The tour begins in The Treasury of the college where various items relating to Jane Austen are kept. These include a family music book and a copy of the first biography penned by her nephew. We had fifteen minutes to have a look before we moved on to the house.

Books in The Treasury, Winchester College

Family music book

Jane and her sister resided on the first floor (from the outside it is the bay window and the window next door to the right). The rooms consisted of three living spaces, a small room, which is thought to be have been a wash room, and a lobby on the landing. There were no kitchen facilities, so food must have been brought in. A corridor on the same floor (added sometime after the house was built) was let out to others. When you walk back down the corridor and look up, you can see where the original house ended.

First editions

Downstairs room

The room with the bay window, where Jane spent most of her time, overlooked the gardens belonging to the headmaster of the college. Part of these still exist and I've often stood there to take photos of the house!

Downstairs the rooms hold information about Jane and her family, books on how the house was decorated to keep it in the style the Austen's would have lived, such as scraping back the surface of the walls to see the colours beyond the top layer, leaving some parts of the house free of renovation so you can see the beams or how the wall was built. In one room, in a glass cabinet, sit copies of three of Jane's book, all first editions.

At some point, after the Austen's, the staircase was repositioned and upstairs you can see (through a glass panel) part of the old staircase. 

The old staircase

A wall would have divided the front and back room, but has since been removed. There are quotes on the walls by Jane and her sister Cassandra, information about two of their brothers and nephews, most of whom attended Winchester College. I didn't realise there were so many brothers, six in all.Only two of the brothers (from what I remember) were mentioned in the various TV shows that have been airing about Jane's life.

Wash room?

Desks like these would have been used by boys at Winchester College

The back of the original house

Corridor added

The guides at the house were truly knowledgeable and very friendly. Once inside the house, there was no time limit. We were told we could stay as long as we liked, and we did! Back downstairs in a back room, a video ran on loop about Jane and the house, and beyond this there was a gift shop. Oh, gosh, resistance was futile!

I think we were inside the house for about an hour and a half. Another group had been and gone! I didn't want to leave. Along the same road is P&G Wells, a bookshop who claim to be the oldest bookshop in the city and possibly the oldest in the country. They have traded since 1729 and in the present building since the 1790's. It was, of course, the bookshop Jane visited. This was my second visit. I was trying to resist and would have carried on, but my friend stopped. That was fatal!

After a quick tea stop, we visited the cathedral. They had an exhibition about Jane Austin and poetry (photography not allowed), Time was short, so after the exhibition I whisked my friend to the most important parts of the cathedral - the crypt where there is an Antony Gormley installation (it was the first time I had seen if waterless and somehow the installation lacks something - surrounded by water you get great reflections and atmosphere) and where Jane Austen is buried.

The back of the house

Garden

A stranded Antony Gormley installation in The Crypt, Winchester Cathedral

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The day flew by. It was one of my best visits to Winchester. The city always amazes me how ever many times I visit. 8 College Street brought me closer to Jane Austen and should the house ever open again, I'd be happy for a revisit.