Bath, balls and Darcy's pile: where to celebrate Jane Austen's 250th anniversary

The Guardian

23-03-2025

Southampton has a significant part to play in the Austen story: after the death of her father in 1805, she moved with her mother and sister to live in the city for three years, taking a house on Castle Square. The Jane Austen Heritage Trail links eight sites around the city that the younger Jane would have known, including the Dolphin Hotel (currently facing an uncertain redevelopment future) where she attended a ball to celebrate her 18th birthday (visitsouthampton.co.uk/janeausten250).
A new Austen-focused exhibition opens at the Sea City Museum on 29 March, bringing together rarely seen letters, paintings and personal items belonging to Austen. A Very Respectable Company – Jane Austen and her Southampton Circle also focuses on Austen's circle of female friends, many of whom found their way into her books. Stay at the Pig in the Wall, with just eight shabby-chic bedrooms and a cosy lounge-deli-dining room, serving the best local produce (room-only doubles from £145, thepighotel.com).
Chawton would be just another small, unremarkable Hampshire village, if it wasn't for the fact Austen spent the last eight years of her life there, revising and writing all six of her novels. Her cottage was a gift from her brother, Edward Knight, who owned the Chawton Estate and lived in the Elizabethan manor house. Both are now museums. Jane Austen's House has a year-long programme of events, beginning with the Spring Fling: Sense & Sensibility Festival (1-11 May), which combines guided tours with live performances, workshops and late-night openings, followed by Emma (12-20 July) and Persuasion & Poetry (12-21 September), with winter happenings for her Birthday Celebration Week (13-21 December, janeaustens.house).
The Chawton Library has an exhibition, Sisters of the Pen: Austen, Influence, Legacy, that brings together works by women which shaped, and were shaped, by Austen, along with exhibits, including first editions of her novels (chawtonhouse.org). The Jane Austen Trail follows the route she often walked to the nearby town of Alton, where the 17th-century Swan Hotel makes an ideal period base (room-only doubles from £76, greenekinginns.co.uk).
She might have called it 'the most tiresome place in the world' but Bath's history is inextricably entwined with Austen's, who lived in the city from 1801-6, when the town was at the height of fashion as a spa resort. The entire city is a Unesco World Heritage Site (one of only two in Europe, along with Venice), a lattice of honey-hued Georgian streets, colonnades and squares, centred around the original Roman baths. Visitors can take afternoon tea in the original Pump Room, soak in the rooftop pool at the Thermae Bath Spa and even sip the 43-mineral-rich waters. But this year, more than ever, the focus is on Bath's most beloved literary figure.
The Jane Austen Centre offers an excellent introduction to her life in the city, with costumed characters, interactive exhibits and a film of the locations that inspired her writing. For Austen 250, the Centre is holding three-themed balls (31 May, 28 June and 13 December), with dance workshops before the events (janeausten.co.uk). To dive more deeply into Austen's sentiments towards Bath, No 1 Royal Crescent's exhibition, The Most Tiresome Place in the World, brings together letters and the only manuscript she wrote while living in the city (5 July- 2 November, no1royalcrescent.org.uk).
Bath's annual Jane Austen Festival gets supercharged this year, with 10 days of balls, country dances, workshops and talks, alongside the largest Regency Costume parade in the world, with soldiers and drummers alongside ladies and gentlemen in full period dress (12-21 September, janeausten.co.uk). Stay in one of the elegantly converted Georgian townhouses at No 15 Bath by Guesthouse, where the rooms come with record-players and vinyl, the tea and coffee tray is hidden in a doll's house, there's a complimentary pantry of goodies for post-sightseeing snacking, and an innovative menu of small and larger plates (and wickedly-good cocktails) in the stylish bar (doubles from £147, room-only, guesthousehotels.co.uk).
It might not quite have had the swoon factor of Colin Firth's Mr Darcy, but Joe Wright's 2005 film of Pride & Prejudice gave Chatsworth a starring role as Pemberton, Darcy's vast country pile. On 13-15 June, the Derbyshire estate steps back into its Regency-era past with a weekend dedicated to all things Austen, with talks, garden tours and an Austen-inspired theatre production, along with the chance to try on Regency fashions (although visitors are encouraged to come along in period dress). The estate has a range of places to stay, from self-catering cottages to pubs and a hotel; the Pilsley Inn is the cosiest, with 13 stylish bedrooms and firelit dining rooms serving well-made pub classics (doubles from £135 room-only, chatsworthescapes.co.uk).
Austen spent her final days in Winchester in 1817 and is buried in the north aisle of the city's imposing, 11th-century cathedral.
No 8 College Street, the house where Austen spent her last weeks, and where she died on 18 July 1817, will be open to the public on Wednesdays and Sundays from 4 June to 30 August (winchestercollege.org), while the Cathedral will host a series of events, including a Regency Ball on 31 May, Austen-themed guided tours and talks and an interactive family trail (winchester-cathedral.org.uk).
Stay at the Wykeham Arms, a rambling, eclectically furnished gastropub with an award-winning restaurant. It offers luxe bedrooms with Bramley products and Egyptian cotton bedding, perfect for retiring to bed with a good book (doubles from £134, wykehamarmswinchester.co.uk).