The Authorized Version

Jane Austen had lived in the quiet Hampshire village of Steventon for all of her 25 years. Her father was Rector of near-by St. Nicholas church

and the large, white, busy rectory was the only home she knew.

In late November of 1800, shortly before her 25^th birthday, Jane had been at Ibthorpe visiting her good friend Martha Lloyd when she returned home to be told abruptly that her parents had decided to move to Bath.

It is said the shock was so severe she fainted. Given the fact that she said “Run mad as often as you choose, but do not faint” in her book Love and Freindship, it is likely the story is an exaggeration of the reality that the news came as a distressing shock.

Although her earlier family visits to the city had been enjoyable enough for her heroine in Northanger Abbey Catherine Morland to cry, “Oh! Who can ever be tired of Bath?” It is far more likely that Jane’s later sentiments agreed more closely with Anne Eliot, her heroine in Persuasion, who disliked Bath, and did not think it agreed with her. Yet Bath was to be Jane's home for 5 years. She was reputedly unhappy enough in Bath to account for her lack of literary output during those years.

Today, though, Tamara and I are excited to see all the houses where Jane lived.

Joy, our knowledgeable guide escorted us,

taking the the most convenient walking route as a much-appreciated concession to everyone’s time, energy, and shoe leather, but let me take you chronologically:

In 1797, Austen visited Bath for the first time. She stayed at No. 1 The Paragon, the home of her wealthy aunt Jane Leigh-Perrot, wife of Mrs. Austen’s brother.

In 1799, Mrs. Austen and Jane spent the months of May and June at 13 Queen Square with her brother Edward, his wife Elizabeth, and 2 of their children while Edward took the waters for his health. Jane reported to Cassandra that they were “very pleased” with their rooms “where we have two very nice-sized rooms, with dirty quilts and everything comfortable.”

It was sadly, not looking its best whilst under renovation, but, as in Jane's day, the apartment still looked out onto the leafy, green Queen Square from the drawing room window.

Then came the plans for actually living there. In May of 1801, the Austens went to Bath and stayed with Mrs. Leigh-Perrot in the Paragon while they considered locations for renting a house. Jane reported their father’s preference in a letter to Cassandra: “the environs of Laura Place seem to be his choice.”

The house-hunting results, though, were discouraging: Green Park was too damp. Rooms of a house in Seymour street were too small. Houses in New King Street were all too small.

Finally in late May the Bath Chronicle advertised a 3 ¼ year occupancy remaining on a 10-year lease at 4 Sydney Place for £150 per annum. This was a bargain due to the fact that the first 2 floors needed to be repainted. The Austens took the lease in late June, then spent the rest of the summer touring Devonshire while the redecorating was done.

They had 3 servants: a man, a woman, and a girl and were apparently very comfortable there. During her 1799 visit Jane had reported enjoying a public breakfast and later a gala with illuminations in nearby Sydney Gardens. One hopes she took pleasure in similar events when in residence. At one point she wrote that she “went to Sydney Gardens soon after one, and did not return till four," so she must have found it adequately amusing.

After the lease expired, however, they moved to the formerly rejected Green Park Buildings.

Green Park East where they lived was destroyed during an air raid in World War II. It was rebuilt, but in a different style to the original houses, so the Green Park Buildings we see now are not the ones the Austens knew.

Although, the pleasant view remains similar. The buildings didn’t look onto the city to the north, but rather out over a small park towards the river and across to the leafy heights of Beechen Cliff. Catherine Morland greatly admired that view. She thought it looked like France—although she had been to France only in her imagination. They lived there for 5 months, but again, the location proved too low, too near the river, and too damp.

Mr. Austen died in 1805, leaving Mrs. Austen and her daughters in a very precarious financial position requiring them to take less expensive lodgings.

 They moved to 25 Gay Street and lived there for 10 months, very near the site of the present Jane Austen Centre.

Their final residence in Bath was rooms at No. 7 Trim Street, which Mrs. Austen had said earlier she would "do everything in her power to avoid." This was in the oldest part of town—undoubtedly what Jane would have hated most as it had no views to the surrounding countryside.

It was noisy, and the street was narrow, dark, and smelly. The area was inhabited by prostitutes, beggars, and thieves. The time there must have seemed interminable because in 1806, Mrs. Austen headed a letter "Trim Street still."

Escape came at last. In July of 1806 Jane’s eldest brother Francis married Mary Gibson. Jane, Cassandra, their mother, and friend Martha Lloyd moved to Southampton to live with the newlyweds. They would be good company for the soon-pregnant Mary while Francis, one of Jane’s sailor brothers, was at sea.

 And so, with the Austen ladies resettled, Tamara and I returned via a pretty garden,

to our comfortable flat in the Royal Crescent,

walking arm-in-arm as Catherine Morland and Isabella Thrope walked there after church in Northanger Abbey.

Coming Next, Day 6: “Ladies and Gentlemen on Parade” an excursion to the elegant Parade House in Trowbridge for afternoon tea and games.