Jane Austen's House
This unassuming redbrick house is where Jane Austen spent the last eight years of her life, writing Emma, Persuasion, and Mansfield Park, and revising Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, and Pride and Prejudice. Now a museum, the house retains a modest but genteel atmosphere suitable for the home of a clergyman's widow and her unmarried daughters. The drawing room contains a piano similar to the one Jane would play every morning before retiring to a small writing table in the family dining parlor—leaving her sister, Cassandra, to do the household chores ("I find composition impossible with my head full of joints of mutton and doses of rhubarb," Jane wrote). In the early 19th century, the road near the house was a bustling thoroughfare, and although Jane was famous for working through interruptions, she retained one protection against the outside world—the famous creaking door, its hinges deliberately un-oiled to better warn her when someone was entering her workspace. The museum is often closed for special events, so call ahead. During 2025, the house will mark the 250th anniversary of Austen's birth will special events and programs (see janeaustens.house/visit/jane-austen-250 for information).
