Educational Tours & Excursions for
UK Primary Schools, Secondary Schools, 6th Form Colleges, Universities & International Student Groups

• Destination: UK - England
• Duration: 1 day

This small private museum located in Chawton, dedicated to the English writer Jane Austen, occupies an 18th century house where the writer spent the last eight years of her life. The house was given to Jane Austen’s brother and he allowed his mother and his two sister live there. Before arriving at the house, Jane had already completed works such as Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice but it is likely that she had revised them at this house prior to them being published. Other works which she wrote at the house were Mansfield Park, Emma and Persuasion.

The museum is run by the Jane Austen Memorial Trust and opened in 1949 and is visited by some 30,000 people each year. The museum collection includes eight music books transcribed by Jane as well as some of her furniture including a Hepplewhite bureau-bookcase with several of her works. Also, the museum has three pieces of jewellery known to worn by Jane Austen including a turquoise beaded bracelet, a topaz cross and a turquoise gold ring.

The Vyne House located just outside of Basingstoke was built for King Henry’s VIII Lord Chamberlain and is now managed by the National Trust. Besides being a grand stately home and having impressive gardens, it is also believed to be the place where J.R.R. Tolkien was given ideas to write Lord of the Rings after visiting the house and asked to explain an Anglo-Saxon lead tablet and its connection to a mine fabled to have been dug by dwarves.