This is the final part of my series of posts on a Christmas visit to Jane Austen’s House, her beloved Chawton Home. We have already seen inside, downstairs and upstairs and so now let have a look at the garden in winter and the outbuildings.

This is the view of the rear of the house. You can clearly see its basic “L’ shape , plus all the other additions made to the structure over the years.

The building that could be clearly seen from Jane Austen and Cassandra’s bedroom was the Bakehouse, a very important part of the Chawton Cottage domain.

Just outside the bake house was the well….which was needed to provide copious amounts of water

for the laundry,which was done in the Bakehouse too. This is the ‘copper’ :the bricks house a copper container. A fire would be lit underneath and the cottons boiled in the upper compartment, now covered with a wooden lid. I remember my grandmother -who had a similar room  in her domestic offices- having her laundry done in this way by a team of people .As a tiny child I was allowed to watch the complex operation of boiling, mangling and starching. Seems a million years ago now…..

The baking for the Austen household took place here too…..

And the proximity of the well and the copper made the Bakehouse the perfectly practical place for boiling water  for scalding the skins of slaughtered pigs. 18th century self sufficiency sounds delightful but having salted a pig once I can confirm it’s not something I’d like to do on a regular basis. Nor indeed is the time tyranny of always producing bread for a household something I’d like to revert to(I tried that once by hand for a few weeks and gave up:then I bought a bread maker!)

The other occupant of the Bakehouse is Mrs Austen’s donkey carriage which I have written about here in a previous post. Its interesting to note that Jane Austen in her final illness didn’t relish driving the cart, which would accommodate two not very large people. She had a saddle made for the donkey and prefered to use this as a sort of Georgian mobility scooter, and this enabled her to still walk with Cassandra around the lanes she loved so well, being a confessed ”desperate walker”.

To the rear of the Bakehouse are new additions to the museum complex. New rooms where lectures and receptions can be held. The museum has been in need of these facilities for years and I am so glad that they now have a splendid space in which to raise funds and educate.

If we go under the great yew tree at the side of the house we then arrive at the garden proper…..

…past the entrance to the house and the Gothic window…..

To look out onto the garden, covered in snow… looking towards the lane that leads to Chawton House.

And the lovely Regency- style tree seat…a pleasant spot in summer but chilly now….

If we turn back toward the house, this time we shall enter by the door on the left……

…into the newly refurbished kitchen……

With its restored range

…where the Austen’s meals would have been prepared…..

And where the laundry would have been ironed…..

And the griddle where scores would have been made

Some early 19th century pearlware in the ”Two Trees” pattern..waiting for some Twinings tea……

This is the view from the kitchen towards the Bakehouse and the old barn which is now the entrance to the museum and a wonderfully stocked shop,where certain purchases were made for next year’s AO Great Anniversary Giveaway (D.V.)

The kitchen was restored with the help and excellent advice of Peter Brears,whose new book about jellies I reviewed here last week. And there are some wonderful early 19th century jelly moulds on show in the kitchen on a small sideboard…

Including a lovely pineapple…….

Martha Lloyd’s recipe book is of course one of the treasures of the museum. Her recipes must have been prepared in this room. It’s all rather wonderful to think that her recipes and the room are now all  in working order and available for us to see, food being such an important part of Jane Austen’s novels and letters.

If we leave the cosy kitchen and the garden we look out onto the road that now leads to the Selbourne road, with the Greyfriars pub on the right….

And we come to the front of the house ,where the Austen’s blocked up one of the windows in order to give them more privacy. And where there are now two plaques: one commemorating Mr Carpenter who gave the house to the Jane Austen Memorial Trust.

And this rather beautiful tablet with its apt wording:

Jane Austen

lived here from 1809-1817

and hence all her works

Were sent to the world

Her admirers in this country

and in America have united

to erect this tablet.

Such art as hers

Can never grow old

And that ends my Christmas jaunt around Jane Austen’s House Museum for this time. I thought you might like to see it in its winter and Christmas finery,a change from the summer pictures we see all the time. I am planning to go back next year,so there will be some more conventional images for you to see then ;)