IT’s good news that Winchester College will be opening up the house in College Street where Jane Austen spent her final days in 1817. In the past it had not been possible as the building was the family home of a member of staff. They were regularly bothered by tourists hoping to have a tour of the property where their literary heroine died. They grew so frustrated they wrote a terse notice and placed it in the window: “This a private house and not open to the public”, if memory serves. As the years passed it faded but the message was clear. Go away!
But next summer the house will welcome people for tours at £12.50 a ticket. It poses the question of whether it might be permanently set aside as some kind of museum in honour of one of this country’s finest writers.
READ MORE HERE: Jane Austen house in College Street to open to the public next year
Winchester is full of historic places that now frustratingly no longer exist. The cathedral was built on the site of two previous large churches. Hyde Abbey, the last known resting place of King Alfred the Great, was largely demolished in the 16th century. Winchester Castle, one of the largest fortifications in southern England, was similarly dismantled after the English Civil War in the mid-17th century. Only the Great Hall survives, giving a clue as to its immensity. The first purpose built hospital was in the city centre. Long gone. The prison was in Jewry Street and now only part of the facade remains, as well as the name of the Wetherspoons pub.
The Jane Austen House in College Street was different, although the frustration over a historical absence was the same. The structure is all there but its story could not be told because of the staffing and domestic requirements of a large boarding school. Now there look there might the chance for the city to do Jane Austen justice, finally.
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