CRALLÉ
Reisefotograf / Autor
der Essenz nachjagen
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Jane Austen's World
Enter a time capsule of important sites in the life of the celebrated author.
The final chapter
WINCHESTER
While tracing the final chapter in Jane's life, we stayed at the Winchester Royal Hotel. It dates from the reign of Charles II in the mid 1600s, although there are no vestiges of that period remaining. Appropriately, we breakfasted in The Writing Room before setting off to meet Nicola James, our certified Blue Badge Guide.
Jane Austen, accompanied by her dear sister Cassandra, came to Winchester for hopeful treatment as Jane's health deteriorated. They shared a room onto Abbey Gardens. The abbey had long since been demolished by Henry VIII in his break with Catholic Rome.
Jane wrote: “Our lodgings are very comfortable. We have a neat, little drawing room with a bow window overlooking Dr. Gable's Garden. I have been out once in a sedan chair and am to be promoted to a wheelchair as the weather serves.”
The garden is a pleasant spot beside the River Itchen (more like a wide, shallow stream) that gently flows past homes and greenery.
The patron saint of Winchester Cathedral is Saint Swithun (or Swithin), an Anglo-Saxon bishop whose name has become associated with rainy weather. According to one legend, angered by disregard for his feast day (July 15th) when the town held a horse race, he called for eternal rain upon that day and for 40 days thereafter. Although ailing, Jane wrote a humourous poem about this, titled When Winchester Races. Nicola read it aloud on the banks of the Itchen.
Jane Austen died at 4 a.m., Friday, July 18,1817, with her head resting on her sister in this house at 8 College Street. She was just 41. The cause of her death remains unknown despite medical theories ranging from Addison's Disease to accidental arsenic poisoning. The house is owned by Winchester College, and according to the Hampshire Chronicle (Oct. 31, 2024) is opening to the public for the first time.
As one of life's inexplicable coincidences, P&G Wells, one of the oldest bookstores in Britain — if not the oldest — is located just 2 doors away from No. 8 where you'll find a large display of Jane's books.
You could say it's a miracle that Winchester Cathedral survives. During the English Civil War from1642 to 1651 between Royalists and Parliamentarians, Oliver Cromwell's cavalry rode into the building, scattering chests of sacred bones and shooting out the stained glass windows. Townsfolk replaced the Great West Window with fragments from the destruction.
A modern memorial shrine to St. Swithun sits at the rear of the church in the retrochoir.
Thanks to the the superhuman efforts of William Walker, a deep sea diver, the cathedral was saved from imminent collapse at the beginning of the 20th century. For 5 years he would don a 200-pound diver suit and toil underwater in darkness for 6 hours a day shoring up the foundation. On weekends during the latter part of the work he would cycle 70 miles home, returning by train on Monday. Wiiliam was honoured in a special ceremony on St. Swithun's Day, 1912. There's a small metal bust of him in the cathedral on the right side at the back.
The funeral procession passed under this arch with St. Swithun-upon-Kingsgate Church over it, one of only 2 surviving city gates due to a church being above one and a pub above the other. Cassandra could only watch, as women did not customarily attend funerals at that time.
With great sadness she wrote “I have lost a treasure, such a sister, such a friend. As can never have been surpassed. She was the sun of my life, the gilder of every pleasure, the soother of every sorrow. I had not a thought concealed from her and it is as if I had lost a part of myself.”
The side door through which Jane's casket was carried into the cathedral and laid to rest.
JANE AUSTEN 250TH CELEBRATIONS
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