Chawton, home to Austen manuscripts and a library of early women writers, has launched a fundraising push to secure its place as a literary destination
As Jane Austen becomes the new face of the £10 note, Chawton House Library, the “Great House” where she whiled away many an hour, is hoping that at least some of the currency bearing her image will be directed its way. The charity is looking to raise around £150,000 over the next 18 months to stay afloat after its main backer withdrew support. It will also be applying for millions in capital grants over the next few years to transform its focus.
The Elizabethan residence in Hampshire, built by the Knight family in the 1580s, was inherited by Jane’s brother Edward centuries later. He offered the nearby bailiff’s residence, now the Jane Austen’s House Museum, to his mother and sisters Jane and Cassandra. But the author was a frequent visitor to her brother’s home, eating and reading there, and walking in its grounds. “I went up to the Great House between 3&4, & dawdled away an hour very comfortably,” she wrote in 1814.
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