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After Mr Austen’s death in Green Park Buildings in January 1805, Mrs Austen gave up the lease there sometime towards the end of March of that year, and moved with Cassandra And Jane to number 25 Gay Street, numbered 6 on the above plan which, along with all the other illustrations in this post can be enlarged by clicking on it
Gay Street was part of John Wood’s original plan for the development of a new upper town in Bath, which began with his construction of Queens Square, then led up the hill via Gay Street to the Circus, and along Brock Street to the Royal Crescent.
In his book, A Description of Bath,
John Wood the architect tell us of his plans to buy land in Bath from Mr Robert Gay, an eminent Surgeon of Bath and London in order to build this important connecting street:
After my return to London I imparted my first design to Mr Gay an eminent Surgeon in Hatton Gardens and Proprietor of the land; and our first Conference as upon the first day of December 1725….
Page 232)
Business calling me twice not the North of England in the summer of the Year 1726 my designs for Improving Bath lay under Consideration till the following Autumn; and Mr Gay’s Land appearing then the most eligible to begin buildings upon, I therefore on Wednesday the 18th of November 1726 fixed my Preliminary Articles with him; and the Saturday after he empowered me by his Letter of Attourney, to engage with anybody that I could bring into the scheme for Building a Street of one thousand and twenty five Feet in length from south to North by fifty Feet in Breadth from East to West for a way to the grand part of the design.
(pages 240-1)
Here is a print of The Cirucs, which is situated at the top of Gay Street, as it appeared in 1773:
You can see that Gay Street steeply descends the hill towards Queen’s Square in the break in the circle of houses in the middle of the picture. You can also see Beechen Cliff looming above it in the distance:
You can also see many chairs. They were the most practicable manner of getting around some of the areas of Bath as they are very steep and, something I can confirm from personal experience of toiling up the hill that is Gay Street, when pregnant and also later with a pushchair containing my deceptively heavy son, it is not easy terrain. The alternative route ,via the Gravel Walk as used by Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth in Persuasion is much preferable, being of a gentler gradient.
The Austen ladies were of course at this time beginning to find that their financial position was not particularly secure. By his will Mr Austen left everything to Mrs Austen. But of course his main source of income was the money from his livings of Deane and Steventon and any entitlement to that money ceased at the moment of his death. Mrs Austen had a little independent income and Cassandra had the interest on the £1000 left to her by her late finance Tom Fowle, but Jane Austen had nothing whatsoever in the way of income.
The letters sent between the Austen brothers at this time indicate quite interesting attitudes to the economic and social fate of the Austen ladies. Frank -who is quite my favourite of the Austen brothers – had just been appointed to the 80-gun HMS Canopus. He generously offered £100 per annum towards the upkeep of Mrs Austen and his sisters, and did so in a letter to Henry Austen requesting that he keep this offer secret from the ladies.
Here is part of Henry’s illuminating reply to him:
It was so absolutely necessary that your noble offer towards my Mother should be made more public than you seem’d to desire, that I really cannot apologize for a partial breach of your request. With the proudest exultations of maternal tenderness the Excellent Parent has exclaimed that never were Children so good as hers. She feels the magnificence of your offer, and accepts of half. I shall therefore honor her demands for 50 pounds annually on your account. James had the day before yesterday communicated to me & Her his desire to be her Banker for the same annual assistance, & l as long as I am an Agent shall do as he does. – If Edward does the least he ought, he will certainly insist on her receiving a £100 from him. So you see My Dear E, that with her own assured property, & Cassandra’s, both producing about £250 per ann., She will be in the receipt of a clear £450 pounds per Ann. – She will be very comfortable, & as a smaller establishment will be as agreeable to them, as it cannot but be feasible, I really think that My Mother & Sisters will be to the full as rich as ever. They will not only suffer no personal deprivation, but will be able to pay occasional visits of health and pleasure to their friends..‘
I cant help but hear some resonances of John and Fanny Dashwood of Sense and sensibility in that extract.
James Austen also wrote to Frank about the financial situation:
Her (Mrs Austen-jfw) future plans are not quite settled, but I believe her summers will be spent in the country amongst her Relations & chiefly I trust among her children – the winters she will pass in comfortable lodgings in Bath. It is a just satisfaction to know that her Circumstances will be easy, & that she will enjoy all those comforts which declining years & precarious health call for. You will I am sure forgive Henry for not having entirely complied with your request for secrecy upon one very important subject in your letter … You would indeed have had a high gratification could you have witnessed the pleasure which our Dear Mother experienced when your intention was communicated to her.
So poor old Jane Austen was also now an object of charity .I’m sure this did not sit well with her. it’s one thing to be kept by ones parents, but ones married brothers?
There are some hints in the two letters written at this time by Jane Austen that still exist, that life in Gay Street without the kindly and benign influence of Mr Austen might have been rather trying: Mrs Austen was most definitely in charge:
The Mr Duncans called yesterday with their Sisters, but were not admitted, which rather hurt me.
(See Letter to Cassandra Austen dated 8th April 1805)
Jane Austen found few congenial souls to bond with in the transient society of Bath: to have some friends turned away by your mother when you were actually “at home” and ready to engage must have been hurtful indeed.
We know very little about the house as it was at the time when Jane Austen lived in it. Gay Street was a very busy street, full of chairs carrying people from the Upper to the Lower town, and would have been noisy. It was firmly set into the centre of town with very little chance of good views of the surrounding countryside. But Jane Austen obviously absorbed all the details and was perhaps fond of it for Gay Street is the setting for a very important meeting between Captain Wentworth and Anne Elliot in the Cancelled Chapters of Persuasion, at the home of the Crofts in Bath..in Gay Street.
I’ve tried to decipher these cancelled chapters on many an occasion when I’ve seen them on show in the British Museum, the British Library and at Jane Austen’s House in Chawton but with not much success: I’ve scanned these in for you form a recent “translation” : here is part of the meeting between Anne and Frederick in Gay Street:
It was altogether a confusion of Images & Doubts–a perplexity, an agitation which she could not see the end of–and she was in Gay St & still so much engrossed, that she started on being addressed by AdmL Croft, as if he were a person unlikely to be met there. It was within a few steps of his own door.–”You are going to call upon my wife, said he, she will be very glad to see you.”–Anne denied it “No–she really had not time, she was in her way home”–but while she spoke, the AdmL had stepped back & knocked at the door, calling out, “Yes, yes do go in; she is all alone. go in & rest yourself.”–Anne felt so little disposed at this time to be in company of any sort, that it vexed her to be thus constrained–but she was obliged to stop. “Since you are so very kind, said she, I will just ask Mrs Croft how she does, but I really cannot stay 5 minutes.–You are sure she is quite alone.”–The possibility of Capt. W. had occurred–and most fearfully anxious was she to be assured–either that he was within or that he was not; which, might have been a question.–”Oh! yes, quite alone–Nobody but her Mantuamaker with her, & they have been shut up together this half hour, so it must be over soon.”–”Her Mantua maker!–then I am sure my calling now, wd be most inconvenient.–Indeed you must allow me to leave my Card & be so good as to explain it afterwards to Mrs C.” “No, no, not at all, not at all. She will be very happy to see you. Mind–I will not swear that she has not something particular to say to you–but that will all come out in the right place. I give no hints.–Why, Miss Elliot, we begin to hear strange things of you–(smiling in her face)–But you have not much the Look of it–as Grave as a little Judge.” –Anne blushed.–”Aye, aye, that will do. Now, it is right. I thought we were not mistaken.” She was left to guess at the direction of his Suspicions; –the first wild idea had been of some disclosure from his Br in law–but she was ashamed the next moment–& felt how far more probable that he should be meaning Mr E.–The door was opened–& the Man evidently beginning to deny his Mistress, when the sight of his Master stopped him. The Adml enjoyed the joke exceedingly. Anne thought his triumph over Stephen rather too long. At last however, he was able to invite her upstairs, & stepping before her said–”I will just go up with you myself & shew you in–. I cannot stay, because I must go to the P. Office, but if you will only sit down for 5 minutes I am sure Sophy will come–and you will find nobody to disturb you–there is nobody but Frederick here–” opening the door as he spoke.–Such a person to be passed over as a Nobody to her!–After being allowed to feel quite secure–indifferent–at her ease, to have it burst on her that she was to be the next moment in the same room with him!–No time for recollection!–for planning behaviour, or regulating manners!–There was time only to turn pale, before she had passed through the door, & met the astonished eyes of Capt. W—. who was sitting by the fire pretending to read & prepared for no greater surprise than the Admiral’s hasty return…..
There was time for all this to pass–with such Interruptions only as enhanced the charm of the communication–and Bath cd scarcely contain any other two Beings at once so rationally & so rapturously happy as during that eveng occupied the Sopha of Mrs Croft’s Drawing room in Gay St.
Jane Austen was famously unsatisfied with this scene and reworked it, making the scene of the presentation of The Letter and the reconciliation of Anne and Frederick take place in the Musgrove’s rooms at the White Hart Inn and let it continue on through the walk through Bath up to the heights of Camden Place, through the Gravel Walk, a gentler incline than Gay Street as I’ve noted and also …the longer way around….perfect for reconciling lovers who have been apart for far too long;-)
After quitting the lease of 4 Sydney Place, the Austen family had to find new premises in which to live. They found Green Park Buildings, and they lived at Number 3 Green Park Buildings East from 1804-5.
This was however a place Jane Austen had originally dismissed while on her search for accommodation in 1801:
Our views on G. P. Buildings seem all at an end; the observation of the damps still remaining in the offices of an house which has been only vacated a week, with reports of discontented families and putrid fevers, has given the coup de grace. We have now nothing in view. When you arrive, we will at least have the pleasure of examining some of these putrefying houses again; they are so very desirable in size and situation, that there is some satisfaction in spending ten minutes within them.
(See Letter to Cassandra Austen dated 21st May 1801)
(An old photograph of Green Park Buildings from The Buildings of Georgian Bath by Walter Ison,looking towards Seymour Street)
The situation was pleasant as the buildings didn’t look out onto the city to the north but out over a small park towards the river and across to the leafy heights of Beechen Cliff- so admired by Catherine Morland in Northnger Abbey(even if she did think it looked like France..where she had never been save in her imagination…)
They determined on walking round Beechen Cliff, that noble hill whose beautiful verdure and hanging coppice render it so striking an object from almost every opening in Bath.
Northanger Abbey, Chapter 14
This part of the city- the Kingsmead area, was developed in the 1790s again to accommodate the expanding population of the spa town
One of the principal features of the layout (of the extension to Bath-jfw)was the formation of Green Park, a wedge-shaped open space lying between two great houses converging on Seymour Street designed as a wide continuation of the existing Charles Street
(See Walter Ison,The Georgian Buildings of Bath ,page 174)
This is a tiny engraving-its true size is 3 cms by 1 cm- from my copy of The Guide to all the Watering and Sea Bathing places etc (1816) by John Fletham, and it shows the view from Beechen Cliff looking towards Bath. You can just make out the disitincitve wedge-shaped buildings that were Green Park Buildings, just in front of the fashionable couple looking across at Bath from the vantage point of the cliff : do enlarge it to get the full effect ( by clicking on it and remember, you can enlarge all the illustrations in this post by doing this).
This is the setting from a section of the Environs of Bath map drawn by John Cary and taken from my copy of his book, Cary’s Traveller’s Companion or a Delineation of the Turnpike Roads of England and Wales etc. (1812):
This section shows the position of Bath among the surrounding hills and downs, rather like a pudding basin:
And though it is not marked on the map, I have annotated the same section to show where Beechen Cliff is situated:
This house was the scene of a sad and almost calamitous event for Jane Austen: the death of her father George Austen in January 1805, coming hard on the news of the death of her great friend, Mrs Lefroy on 16th December 1804, Jane’s 29th birthday . The two letters she had to write to Frank Austen , her brother, at this time,still exist. They make for painful reading: she being so correct but also so anxious for Frank reciving the news of the death of his excellent father by letter. Here is the text of the first dated Monday 21 January 1805:
My dearest Frank
I have melancholy news to relate, and sincerely feel for your feelings under the shock of it. I wish I could better prepare You for it.But having said so much, Your mind will already forestall the sort of Event which I have to communicate. Our dear Father has closed his virtuous and happy life, in a death almost as free from suffering as his Children could have wished. He was taken ill on Saturday morning, exactly in the same way as heretofore, an oppression in the head with fever, violent tremulousness, and the greatest degree of Feebleness. The same remedy of Cupping, which had before been so successful, was immediately applied to but without such happy effects. The attack was more violent, and at first he seemed scarcely at all relieved by the Operation. Towards the Evening however he got better, had a tolerable night, and yesterday morning was so greatly amended as to get up and join us at breakfast as usual, walk about with only the help of a stick, and every symptom was then so favourable that when Bowen (the Austen’s apothecary-jfw)saw him at one, he felt sure of his doing perfectly well. But as the day advanced, all these comfortable appearances gradually changed; the fever grew stronger than ever, and when Bowen saw him at ten at night, he pronounc’d his situation to be most alarming. At nine this morning he came again and by his desire a Physician was called–Dr Gibbs–But it was then absolutely a lost case. Dr Gibbs said that nothing but a Miracle could save him, and about twenty minutes after Ten he drew his last gasp. Heavy as is the blow, we can already feel that a thousand comforts remain to us to soften it. Next to that of the consciousness of his worth and constant preparation for another World, is the remembrance of his having suffered, comparatively speaking, nothing. Being quite insensible of his own state, he was spared all the pain of separation, & he went off almost in his Sleep. My Mother bears the Shock as well as possible; she was quite prepared for it, and feels all the blessing of his being spared a long Illness. My Uncle and Aunt have been with us, and shew us every imaginable kindness. And tomorrow we shall I dare say have the comfort of James’s presence, as an Express has been sent to him.-We write also of course to Godmersham and Brompton. Adeiu my dearest Frank. The loss of such a Parent must be felt, or we should be Brutes-. I wish I could have given you better preparation but it has been impossible. -Yours Ever affectionately
JA.
Capt. Austen HMS Leopard Dungeness New Romney
Sadly for Jane Austen she had to write another letter to Frank, virtually identical to the first, because Frank was not in Dungeness in Kent but at Portsmouth in Hampshire:
January 22nd 1805
My dearest Frank
I wrote to you yesterday; but your letter to Cassandra this morning, by which we learn the probability of your being by this time at Portsmouth, obliges me to write to you again, having unfortunately a communication as necessary as painful to make to you.Your affectionate heart will be greatly wounded, and I wish the shock could have been lessen’d by a better preparation;but the Event has been sudden, and so must be the information of it. We have lost an Excellent Father.An Illness of only eight and forty hours carried him off yesterday morning between ten and eleven. He was seized on Saturday with a return of the feverish complaint, which he had been subject to for the three last years; evidently a more violent attack from the first, as the applications which had before produced almost immediate relief, seemed for some time to afford him scarcely any.On Sunday however he was much better, so much so as to make Bowen quite easy, and give us every hope of his being well again in a few days.-ut these hopes gradually gave way as the day advanced, and when Bowen saw him at ten that night he was greatly alarmed.A Physician was called in yesterday morning, but he was at that time past all possibility of cure–& Dr Gibbs & Mr Bowen had scarcely left his room before he sunk into a Sleep from which he never woke. Everything I trust and believe was done for him that was possible! It has been very sudden! within twenty four hours of his death he was walking with only the help of a stick, was even reading! We had however some hours of preparation, and when we understood his recovery to be hopeless, most fervently did we pray for the speedy release which ensued. To have seen himlanguishing long, struggling for Hours, would have been dreadful!-& thank God! we were all spared from it. Except the restlessness and confusion of high Fever, he did not suffer- and he was mercifully spared from knowing that he was about to quit the Objects so beloved, so fondly cherished as his wife & Children ever were.His tenderness as a Father, who can do justice to? My Mother is tolerably well; she bears up with great fortitude, but I fear her health must suffer under such a shock. An express was sent for James, and he arrived here this morning before eight o’clock.-The Funeral is to be on Saturday, at Walcot Church.
The Serenity of the Corpse is most delightful! It preserves the sweet, benevolent smile which always distinguished him. They kindly press my Mother to remove to Steventon as soon as it is all over, but I do not believe she will leave Bath at present. We must have this house for three months longer, and here we shall probably stay till the end of that time.We all unite in Love, and I am affec:’y Yours
JA.
Capt. Austen HMS Leopard Portsmouth
Poor Jane Austen- to have to written two, let alone one such letter.
Mr Austen was buried in Walcot Church…and so began a period of wandering for the Austen ladies. Their income immediately being reduced- the income from Mr Austen’s living ceased on his death: James Austen was the new incumbent of the Steventon living-they had a period of uncertainty before them.
We shall look at this in more detail on our next post on their home in Gay Street.
A final note about the Austen’s home in Green Park Buildings: Green Park East was bombed and destroyed during an air raid in the Second World War: it was rebuilt but in a different style to the original houses, so while it still exists, the Number 3 Green Park Buildings we can see now is not the house in which Jane Austen lived and her father died.
After months of house hunting –searching for and dismissing houses that might have damp and other problems….
Our views on G. P. Buildings seem all at an end; the observation of the damps still remaining in the offices of an house which has been only vacated a week, with reports of discontented families and putrid fevers, has given the coup de grace. We have now nothing in view. When you arrive, we will at least have the pleasure of examining some of these putrefying houses again; they are so very desirable in size and situation, that there is some satisfaction in spending ten minutes within them.
(See Letter to Cassandra Austen dated 21st May 1801)
…the Austens took the lease of number 4 Sydney Place. This was, as you will recall, one of the places Jane Austen favoured when they were house hunting, in her letter of January 1801.
Why? It was on the outskirts of Bath, looking out onto the open countryside as you can see from the view of the surrounding hills in this acquatint of the Sydney Gardens.
This was, I feel vitally important to Jane Austen, used as she was to the gently rolling countryside of Hampshire. As I’ve noted in my post about the Paragon, we sometimes forget when we see pictures of the large airy squares and graceful crescents in Bath how some of the buildings in the steeply terraced areas of Bath could convey a sense of oppression and constriction. I feel sure this lack of an open aspect is one reason why Jane Austen disliked certain parts of Bath- notably The Paragon and Axford Buildings.
As you can see from the plan of Bath of 1803, this part of Bath was developed on the far side of the Avon River.Do note you can enlarge all the illustrations in this post by clicking on them .
It was called Bathwick-after the original settlement there- and until the buildings of the Pulteney Bridge it was only accessible by ferry. Here is a detail of a map of Bath dating from the 1750s which shows, quite charmingly, the ferry from the developed part of Bath to the Spring Gardens, which with the city prison, market gardens and watermill, together with the undeveloped hamlet of Bathwick, was the only developed part of the city on that side of the river until the 1770s.
The Bathwick area was developed by its owner, William Johnstone Pultney-after whom Robert Adam’s magnificent bridge-which contained shops in imitation of the Ponte Vecchio in Florence or the Rialto in Venice-was named.
Thomas Baldwin was the main architect/ planner of this area. The master plan was to build an entire neo classical suburb on this side of the river, complete with wide gracious streets of houses of neo-classically inspired design and with a new pleasure garden- the Sydney Gardens- for the residents to enjoy.
By the 1790s the wide main thoroughfare of this side of the river- Pulteney Street and Laura place- were under construction. The Sydney Gardens and the Sydney Tavern, which terminated the view along Great Pulteney Street from the Putney Bridge
as seen here in a still from 2004 the film production of Vanity Fair, were opened in 1795.
The gardens were, as you can see, hexagonal in shape and it was intended to build a series of terraces surrounding the gardens. Of the planned terraces only two were actually built, and were completed in 1794.
The Austens were keen on this area. An important point to consider was that it was on level ground, unlike the majority of the new buildings in the Upper Town in Bath, on the other side of the river, which were built on very steep slopes. This may have played a part in their decision to live there, with the centre of town an easy level walk along the wonderfully wide Pulteney Street and over the Pulteney Bridge
It was also near to the Sydney Gardens and its Labyrinth, which so attracted Jane Austen:
It would be very pleasant to be near Sidney Gardens-we might go into the Labrinth every day…
(Letter to Cassandra Austen,dated 21st January 1801)
The advertisement in the Bath chronicle dated 28th May 1801, for the lease of number 4 Sydney Place obviously caught their eye:
TO BE DISPOSED OF, THE LEASE OF No 4 SYDNEY PLACE three years and a quarter of which are unexpired at Midsummer.
The situation is desirable, the rent very low and the landlord is bound by covenant to paint the two first floors this summer-a premium will therefore be expected.
For Particulars apply to Messrs. Watts and Forth in Cornwall-Buildings, Bath.
The Reverend Austen’s income at this time was £600 per annum. According to an article written by the present owners of 4 Sydney Place( see JAS Report 1997, page 96) the rent for Number 4 was £150 per year, a very sizeable amount of his income.. The article also gives this description of number 4’s interior:
(The Vestibule at 4 Sydney Place from Constance Hill’s book, Jane Austen, Her Homes and Her Friends (1923))
4 Sydney Place has four stories plus a basement The ground floor has an entrance hall and two rooms: the front room would have been the parlour and dining room used for everyday entertainment and the rear room would most likely have been Mr Austen’s study. On the first floor there is a magnificent drawing room covering the full area of the house which looks south over Sydney Gardens; the windows are large and it is a very sunny room.
(A Corner of the drawing room at 4 Sydney Place from Constance Hill’s book, Jane Austen, Her Homes and Her Friends (1923)
On the second floor there are three bedrooms; the parents would have slept in one and another would have been occupied by the two sisters- they shared a bedroom all their lives. The top floor has another three bedrooms, where the servants would have slept. The kitchen in the basement is reached by stairs from the ground floor. There is a small walled garden in which there would have been an earth closet..there was piped water to the house.
Prior to moving into Sydney Place the Austen holidayed in Sidmouth in Devon. Eliza de Feuillide, Jane’s cousin wrote to Phylly Walter, another cousin, on the 29th October 1801:
I conclude that you know of our Uncle & Aunt Austen and their daughters having spent the summer in Devonshire-They are now returned to Bath where they are superintending the fitting up of their new house
The Austens remained at number 4 for three years.The lease was due to expire in September 1804: a renewal of it, albeit on a longer term, would have no doubt necessitated a rise in the rent for the property. Obviously this could not be countenanced on their limited income: and so they left their new found and pleasant but temporary home in 1804 to live in Green Park Buildings…the first of three such removals while they remained in Bath, and the subject of our next post.
Before I post about Sydney Place, I thought it might be useful to see the quandary the Austens had to face when they moved to Bath in 1801…Where, oh where to live in fashionable and expensive Bath on not a particularly large income , while still maintaining some semblance of status and happiness?
Jane’s letter to Cassandra Austenof the 3rd January 1801 details all the places she thought might or might not suit.
Here is the 1803 plan of Bath from The Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places by John Feltham annotated with the locations she mentions in the letter:
(Please do click on this to enlarge it so you can see all the details..)
And here is the extract from the letter:
There are three parts of Bath which we have thought of as likely to have houses in them — Westgate Buildings,(A)
Charles Street,(B)
and some of the short streets leading from Laura Place (C)
or Pulteney Street (D).
Westgate Buildings,(A) though quite in the lower part of the town, are not badly situated themselves. The street is broad, and has rather a good appearance.
Charles Street, however, I think, is preferable. The buildings are new, and its nearness to Kingsmead Fields
would be a pleasant circumstance. Perhaps you may remember, or perhaps you may forget, that Charles Street(B) leads from the Queen Square Chapel (F)
to the two Green Park Streets (G).
The houses in the streets near Laura Place (C) I should expect to be above our price.
Gay Street (L) would be too high,
except only the lower house on the left-hand side as you ascend. Towards that my mother has no disinclination; it used to be lower rented than any other house in the row, from some inferiority in the apartments.
But above all others her wishes are at present fixed on the corner house in Chapel Row (H) , which opens into Prince’s Street (I).
Her knowledge of it, however, is confined only to the outside, and therefore she is equally uncertain of its being really desirable as of its being to be had. In the meantime she assures you that she will do everything in her power to avoid Trim Street,(J)
although you have not expressed the fearful presentiment of it which was rather expected.
We know that Mrs. Perrot will want to get us into Axford Buildings,(K)
but we all unite in particular dislike of that part of the town, and therefore hope to escape. Upon all these different situations you and Edward may confer together, and your opinion of each will be expected with eagerness.
You can cleary see Jane Austen’s preferences are for places that have the opportunity of open views…making her feel that she is not too far from the countryside, and importantly, with access to the hills for walking…The expense involved also weighs heavily on her mind. She also opts for those locations that were not so close to the Leigh Perrots to be uncomfortable. They were inevitably going to be part of their social circle in Bath, and no doubt were a very keen attraction for Mrs Austen to be retired near to her brother and his wife, but for Jane Austen I think, paraphrasing Elizabeth Bennet, it was possible for a woman to be settled too near her family….
Jane Austen’s aunt and uncle James Leigh Perrott and his wife lived during the winter season, at Number 1, the Paragon which they rented from 1797 until 1810 when they moved to a house they had purchased in Great Pultney Street.
The Paragon is shown as number 3 on the map,and this can be enlarged-as can all the other illustrations in this post, merely by clicking on it.
Jane Austen stayed with them there in 1797 and also in 1801 when the Austen’s first left Steventon upon Mr Austens retirement, so that they could have a base while they were house hunting for a suitable place to live in Bath.
The Paragon was built on ground originally owned by a Mrs Hooper who had granted a lease of it for 99 years to Thomas Warr Attwood, who intended to develop it. The Mayor and corporation of Bath approved Attwood’s plan in 1768. As you can see from the section of the 1803 map of Bath, above, the site is long and narrow-set between two roads. It was also a difficult site, and this is something the map cannot convey: it was set on a very steep slope-the land falls away quite dramatically towards Cornwall Road.
The Paragon ..begin sites on a narrow strip of land sloping between two roads having a difference of some 40 feet in their levels, and while the main front towards London Road presents a normal appearance, at the rear is a great substructure of vaults supporting the hanging gardens entered from the basements of the houses.
(Walter Ison,The Georgian Buildings of Bath, page 109)
It has to be admitted that Jane Austen was not in a good fame of mind when she stayed there in 1801. She had been rather forced to leave her beloved Steventon home, their friends and neighbours and the surrounding countryside, against her will. She was a self confessed “Desperate Walker” and being hemmed in, in a town, by houses and buildings, however grand , must have felt oppressive to her.
It appears she and Cassandra were not privy to the conversations Mr and Mrs Austen held regarding the move to Bath, (both being absent from home at the time) and family tradition has it that on hearing the news put rather brutally to her by Mrs Austen, Jane fainted :
As she and Martha arrived from Ibthorpe early in December( 1800-jfw) they were met in the rectory hall by Mrs Austen, who greeted them with : “Well, girls, it is all settled, we have decided to leave Steventon in such a week and go to Bath”- and to Jane the shock of this intelligence was so great that she fainted away. Mary Lloyd( wife of James Austen-JW) who was also present to greet her sister, remembered that Jane was greatly distressed”
(See Page 128 Jane Austen: A Family Record, Deirdre Le Faye)
Her letters written during this period seethe with discontent in my opinion, and she feared remaining in the vicinity of Axford Buildings and the Paragon, for its closeness to her Aunt Leigh Perrot with whom she always had strained relationship , Mrs Leigh Perrot being , in my view,a manipulative and difficult character:
We know that Mrs. Perrot will want to get us into Axford Buildings, but we all unite in particular dislike of that part of the town, and therefore hope to escape…
(See Letter to Cassandra Austen dated 3rd January 1801)
Why did Jane Austen (and presumably Mr Austen and Cassandra)dislike that part of town so much ? I think it seems she felt the situation was restrictive. Look at this extract from her letter of 1799 written from the more open surroundings of Queen’s Square:
I like our situation very much; it is far more cheerful than Paragon, and the prospect from the drawing-room window, at which I now write, is rather picturesque, as it commands a prospective view of the left side of Brock Street, broken by three Lombardy poplars in the garden of the last house in Queen’s Parade.
(See Letter to Cassandra Austen dated 17th May, 1799)
The houses in Paragon and the adjoining Axford Buildings looked out on to a busy road –the Paragon and Axford Buildings led down to the London Road , the main connecting thoroughfare with London which would have been very busy with horses, private coaches, waggons and, of course, mail coaches.
The intriguing feature of the buildings in this area was that they were built with the best and largest rooms facing the rear of the property, not the road, as was more usual in Bath. The reason was of course to be able to give the best rooms the best view, down the hill towards the River Avon:
Upon this long and narrow site sloping between two curving roads of different levels Attwood built the fine crescent of twenty one houses which he named Paragon Buildings, a costly speculation involving a massive substructure of retaining walls and vaults which were intended to be let for storage purposes. As in the similarly sited range of Belmont, the houses were planed with staircases rising towards the street front so that the principal rooms at the back overlook the extensive prospect of the Avon valley.
(See Walter Ison, The Georgian Buildings of Bath page 157)
The rooms at the front, facing the road were likely therfore to be darker, smaller, noisy and having a prospect only of the rear of the houses built in Belmont .
I feel almost certain that as the youngest unmarried daughter who was somewhat prickly towards her Aunt, Jane Austen may have been given one of these dark and noisy rooms when she stayed at the Paragon ……as someone who appreciated open views and space she must have felt very oppressed by the situation and I sympathize with her.
Another building that may have irritated her in the Paragon area was the chapel of the Countess of Huntingdon, now the premises of the Building of Bath Museum owned and organized by the Bath Preservation Trust
Go here to read a description of the history of this Evangelical church,which was organised by the indefatigable Countess,and which still exists.
Jane Austen disliked the evangelical movement,especially that within the Church of England.
I do not like the Evangelicals.”
(See Letter to Cassandra dated January 24, 1809)
The closest she could get to openly admiring it was this rather grudging admission expressed in this extract from her letter to her niece, Fanny Knight, written when Fanny was considering marring an Evangelical gentleman:
“I am by no means convinced that we ought not all to be Evangelicals, & am at least persuaded that they who are so from Reason & Feeling, must be happiest & safest.”
(See letter to Fanny Knight , dated November 18, 1814 )
Being in the very close vicinity of The Countess of Huntingdon’s chapel may have also added to her dislike of the area. In my humble opinion. It would have been a constant irritant…..
But luckily for Jane, the Austens did not settle there at all…they moved almost as far away as they could, to the very outskirts of Bath in Sydney Place, which will be the topic of our next post in this series.
This is a very elegant church and I’ve always loved seeing it on its hill, on the approach to Bath from the A4…
Here is its position in Bath,
shown on a section from this larger map of Bath in 1803 from John Feltham’s Guide to all the Watering and Sea-Bathing Places etc
The church is number 1 on this map, which can be enlarged if you click on it. You can see the position of the church -marked as a black section of the top of the piece of land between Walcot and Cornwall Buildings: if you look carefully you can also see the site of the Walcot burial ground to the south-east of the church.
This church holds very special Jane Austen associations, as it was the church where her mother and father married and also where the reverend George Austen was buried.
The building we can see now-still a functioning church-
was rebuilt after the Austen’ wedding, because of the boom in the Bath population in the mid 18th century. The parish of St. Swithin’s decided to demolish the old medieval church on the site and to rebuild, employing the architect of St James ,Bath, John Palmer as their architect for their more spacious and modern church.
This is how Walter Ison in his wonderful book, The Gregorian Buildings of Bath, describes the exterior and the interior of the building:
The exterior is adorned with a giant order of Ionic pilasters with plain shafts ,which rise from a deep plinth and divide the side elevations into six equal bays. The two tiers of widows, low segmental-headed lights to the ground floor and tall arched lights to the galleries, are framed by heavily moulded architraves. A plain strongcourse marks the gallery level and the fronts are finished with an entablature and plain parapet. Low wings containing vestries and staircases, flank the of the tower, which forms the centre of the west front…
The interior measure approximately 68 feet by 52 feet and is similar to that of St James’s Church except that here three widely spaced columns stand on each side of the nave and the gallery is independent of them. The alter stands in a shallow bay corbelled out over the lower road and the side walls are adorned with many interesting memorial tablets including one to the architect, John Palmer.
Back to Jane Austen…Jane’s mother, Cassandra Leigh was living in Bath at the time of her marriage to George Austen in 1764. Her father had retired to Bath in the early 1760s, and had died there in January 1764, and was then buried in the subject of our post today, St Swithin’s Church.
The Austens married on the 26th April 1764 by special license at St. Swithin’s
This is a copy of the register recording their marriage, which you can enlarge as you can all the illustrations in this post, simply by clicking on it.
In a characteristically practical manner, Mrs Austen did not appear at church arrayed in any special wedding dress of fine embroidered silk. Instead she wore a typical mid 18th century travelling dress -a habit-of red worsted wool.
Her dress must have been very similar to this one held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in their collection. If you go here you can see a 360 degree view of the dress and a short description of it.
This dress was indeed very practical garb for the wife of a country rector. And it gave good service to the family for when no longer fit to be worn as a dress, it was adapted as clothes for the Austen children.
Frank Austen , one of Jane’s sailor brothers, was by all accounts a fearless little boy and had an instinctive gift for horse trading. When he was seven years old he bought a pony for £1, 11 shillings and 6 pence, which he trained and hunted and at the end of two years ownership sold for £2 12 shillings and 6 pence, thereby making a profit of over one guinea. The wedding dress was finally used up to make Francis a jacket and a pair breeches so that he could appear in style in the hunting field as a child.
When Jane Austen was staying with Edward Austen at Queen’s Square in June 1799 she was of course commissioned by her sister, Cassandra, to buy articles of clothing, and in particular to find out what the latest fashion was so that they could keep up with the times in rural Hampshire.
Bath was (and still is) a wonderful centre for shopping: it impressed the fashion-obsessed Mrs Allen in Northanger Abbey :
“Bath is a charming place, sir; there are so many good shops here. We are sadly off in the country; not but what we have very good shops in Salisbury, but it is so far to go — eight miles is a long way; Mr. Allen says it is nine, measured nine; but I am sure it cannot be more than eight; and it is such a fag — I come back tired to death. Now, here one can step out of doors and get a thing in five minutes.”
Northanger Abbey,Chapter 3
But in Jane Austen’s case, the shops proved disappointing:
Flowers are very much worn, and fruit is still more the thing. Elizabeth has a bunch of strawberries, and I have seen grapes, cherries, plums, and apricots. There are likewise almonds and raisins, French plums, and tamarinds at the grocers’, but I have never seen any of them in hats. A plum or greengage would cost three shillings; cherries and grapes about five, I believe, but this is at some of the dearest shops. My aunt has told me of a very cheap one, near Walcot Church, to which I shall go in guest of something for you.
(See :Letter to Cassandra Austen dated June 2nd 1799)
The search for fruit in Walcot was not very productive: Jane Austen’s Aunt, Mrs Leigh Perrot typically sending Jane on a fools errand in search of cheap decorative fruit, sending her to a cheap shop where annoyingly only flowers were to be had:
We have been to the cheap shop, and very cheap we found it, but there are only flowers made there, no fruit; and as I could get four or five very pretty sprigs of the former for the same money which would procure only one Orleans plum — in short, could get more for three or four shillings than I could have means of bringing home — I cannot decide on the fruit till I hear from you again. Besides, I cannot help thinking that it is more natural to have flowers grow out of the head than fruit. What do you think on that subject?
(See: Letter to Cassandra Austen dated June 11th, 1799).
I tend to agree…flowers and not fruit sprouting from the head seems far more natural, but I am not sure exactly why…
The last Jane Austen association with St Swithin’s is rather poingnant: Jane’s father, Geroge Austen was buried there after his death in Bath on the 21st January 1805, and this is a picture of the original ledgerstone, which indicated the place of his burial.
This was re-sited and renovated by the Bath and Bristol branch of the Jane Austen Society in 2000, and a new sign recording George Austen’s associations with the church was erected:
You might like to note that Fanny Burney –one of Jane Austen’s favourite novelists-
and her husband who lived in Bath in the early 19th century, were also buried in the Walcot burial ground and at a later date a memorial was erected near the church commemorating them.
Like this:
Jane Austen first visited Bath in 1797, staying with her uncle, James Leigh Perrot and his wife at their home in Paragon. They spent every winter in Bath, to take the waters and enjoy the fashionable social life there.
No letters that Jane Austen wrote survive for that year -1797- and so we have little evidence of her first impressions of Bath.
We can, however, guess that she saw things in this crowded, fashionable place with her unerringly clear eye for it was in 1798-99 that she wrote what was to become Northanger Abbey,a satire not only on the rage for Horrid books, but also on the busy but ultimately vacuous life to be found in Bath, husband hunting, shopping and entering into the round of fashionable entertainments…
However, some of her letters written during her second stay in Bath do survive. She travelled to the spa to stay there in some style with her brother Edward, his wife and children, Fanny and Edward, and her mother, Mrs Austen, in number 2 on this annotated 1803 map of Bath (above-do click on it to enlarge it)- in Queen’s Square.
The Austen family’s arrival in Bath was noted in the Bath Chronicle for Thursday 23rd May , 1799. A “Mr and Mrs Austin”(sic) were noted among the new arrivals to the city. On arrival in the house, Jane immediately set down to write to her sister Cassandra and it is her letter of 17th May 1799 which provides us with much information about the house, number 13 on the south side of the square :
which was to be their base for their stay of just over a month:
Well, here we are at Bath; we got here about one o’clock, and have been arrived just long enough to go over the house, fix on our rooms, and be very well pleased with the whole of it.
(One of the buildings on the south side of Queen’s Square from John Wood’s Description of Bath etc.,1765)
Queens Square was one of the first parts of Bath to be developed in the early 18th century by the architect, John Wood. It took seven years to complete – from 1728-1736- and was the first stage in the creation of the new Upper Town of Bath(the remainder was the creation of Gay Street and the Kings Circus). The concept behind the creation of the square was to provide a unifying façade to the houses so that they looked like one massive mansion on the south facing side (and indeed this range did contain a very large house for John Wood himself)
Walter Ison in his magnificently detailed book The Georgian Buildings of Bath writes about the development:
Queens Square is sited to the north-west of the old city boundaries on the high southward sloping ground which Robert Gay granted to John Wood in a series of 99 year leases…Wood envisaged the north, east and west ranges of buildings as forming a palace forecourt, the ensemble to be viewed from the south side. The magnificent north front, elaborately modeled to gain the fullest advantage of light and shade offered by a south aspect, fully realizes the body of this supposed palace, to which the east and west sides were to form wings…While the east side was carried out to this design at an early date, circumstances arose later which prevented Wood from building the complementary range. The buildings on the west side eventually took the form of a large mansion…The south side was built more or less in accordance with Wood’s original intentions
This is the plan of the square from Wood’s own book which detailed the history and the early 18th century architectural innovations designed by him, A Description of Bath etc ( 1765)
Jane Austen was pleased with the house, characteristically noting it quirks along with its good points:
We are exceedingly pleased with the house; the rooms are quite as large as we expected. Mrs. Bromley is a fat woman in mourning, and a little black kitten runs about the staircase. Elizabeth (Edward’s wife-jfw) has the apartment within the drawing-room; she wanted my mother to have it, but as there was no bed in the inner one, and the stairs are so much easier of ascent, or my mother so much stronger than in Paragon as not to regard the double flight, it is settled for us to be above, where we have two very nice-sized rooms, with dirty quilts and everything comfortable. I have the outward and larger apartment, as I ought to have; which is quite as large as our bedroom at home, and my mother’s is not materially less. The beds are both as large as any at Steventon, and I have a very nice chest of drawers and a closet full of shelves — so full indeed that there is nothing else in it, and it should therefore be called a cupboard rather than a closet, I suppose.
She also very much preferred the views over the square towards the rising ground of the Upper Town, to the rather enclosed and dark situation of her uncle’s house in the Paragon:
I like our situation very much; it is far more cheerful than Paragon, and the prospect from the drawing-room window, at which I now write, is rather picturesque, as it commands a prospective view of the left side of Brock Street, broken by three Lombardy poplars in the garden of the last house in Queen’s Parade.
Though she didn’t mention it, Jane Austen’s view across the square also took in the small square of grass in the centre of the square and its obelisk, commemorating Frederick, Prince of Wales the father of George III:
Queen’s Square is charmingly situated and composed of elegant buildings which display all the grandeur of architectural excellence. It was designed by Wood, to whose professional taste and spirit Bath owes so much. In the area is a pleasure-ground, enclosed by iron palisades, adorned in the centre with an obelisk seventy feet high shaped and pointed like a bookbinders needle and charged with the following inscription:
In memory of humours conferred,
And in gratitude
For benefits bestowed
In this city
By his Royal Highness
FREDERICK PRINCE OF WALES
and his
ROYAL CONSORT
in the year MDCCXXXVII.
This Obelisk is erected
by RICHARD NASH esq,
(See The Guide to all the Watering and Sea -bathing Places etc (1803) by John Feltham)
For Mrs Austen,the Square-so called for it was the first of the important squares to be built in Bath, remained THE place to stay: in 1801 when they were trying to find somewhere to live in Bath upon the Reverend George Austen’s retirement, Jane wrote almost despairingly to Cassandra that:
My mother hankers after The Square dreadfully and it is but natural to suppose my Uncle will take her part…
(Letter to Cassandra Austen, dated 21st January 1801)
Of course by the time Jane Austen was writing Persuasion – in 1815-16- The Square was one of the oldest of the new developments in Bath: it was far more fashionable to live higher up in the new town with its crescents and pleasant outlooks across the city and the river. Which allowed her to make a small joke at her mother’s expense when the fashionably minded Musgrove girls declare that Queens Square is too old-fashioned for them to contemplate as a place to stay in Bath for the winter season:
I hope we shall be in Bath in the winter; but remember, papa, if we do go, we must be in a good situation: none of your Queen-squares for us!
Persuasion, Chapter 6
The Austen’s stay in Bath ended in late June and Jane Austen returned to Steventon-away from the glare of Bath in the summer. And she could joke to Cassandra that she had better prepare a good meal for them as they were used to high level of living in Bath:
You must give something very nice for we are used to live well
(See Letter to Cassandra dated 19th June 1799)
I daresay had she been presented only with a dish of bread and cheese, the fact that she was back in her beloved Steventon home would have made it seem like a feast.
