Memories from Chawton House: April
From Jane Austen's family
Hello my friends,
April's cherished secrets from Chawton House arrive fashionably late this month – and there's a rather unexpected story behind it.
Two weeks ago, life reminded me that even the best-laid plans can go awry when I found myself facing some unexpected medical complications that required surgery and a period of recovery. I'm delighted to report that all is well, and I'll be completely restored to health in time to host Jane Austen's 250th Birthday Celebration at Chawton House on Sunday 22nd June. (I cannot wait to share behind-the-scenes glimpses of this truly historic event with you all!)
During my recuperation, I've been reflecting on our time at Chawton House and how my father, Jeremy Knight, and I have such different perspectives.
For eighteen years, I called Chawton House home, and those formative years growing up in the heart of Jane Austen's literary legacy shaped not only who I am but how I see the world. As a young girl, I had the most extraordinary role model in my famous aunt – a woman who carved her own path through wit, determination, and an independent spirit that still inspires millions today. Her example, combined with my family's long tradition of service, baked charity work into my very soul – something evident in the Jane Austen Literacy Foundation, which I founded and have run as a volunteer for twelve years, supporting literacy projects around the world.
Growing up surrounded by thousands of visitors who made pilgrimages to Jane's literary home, I witnessed firsthand how her legacy belonged to everyone, not just my family. This understanding sparked a deep desire in me as an adult to share our heritage, a calling I've answered through my memoir Jane & Me: My Austen Heritage, through speaking at events worldwide, and through sharing our family stories online, bringing others closer to Jane Austen’s world.
Yet my memories and perspective represent just one thread in the rich tapestry of Chawton's story. Each member of my family carries their own unique memories of this remarkable place, their own understanding of what it means to be part of such an extraordinary legacy.
My father, Jeremy Knight, Edward Austen's third great-grandson, lived at Chawton House for more than forty years, longer than anyone else alive today. His memories stretch back to the 1940s, to a time before Jane Austen's House welcomed its first public visitors, when Chawton still held the quiet rhythms of a private family home, before Austen lovers flocked to the village.
Dad witnessed the house through all its seasons – not just those marked by the calendar, but the seasons of fortune that shape any great estate. He remembers the prosperity of the early years and he lived through the challenging times of the 1950s when the estates finances collapsed. In the 1970s and 80s, the final years when parts of the house cried out for repairs that funds couldn't provide, Dad rolled up his sleeves and applied his own hands to preserving what he could of our family legacy.
Though my parents moved just a few miles away, their hearts never truly left Chawton. For decades since, they've devoted themselves as volunteers at both Chawton House and Jane Austen's House, preserving a heritage that belongs not just to our family, but to the world.
I've asked Dad to share his seasonal reflections with us, month by month, memories that span eight decades of watching spring arrive in Jane's beloved Hampshire, of summer afternoons in the gardens she knew, of autumn leaves falling on paths she once walked, and winter fires crackling in hearths that warmed generations of Austens and Knights before us.
Here are his treasured memories of April at Chawton House...
'On Easter Sunday, the resident family would get together, and my mother would provide the most wonderful roast lunch for all twelve of us to eat the Great Hall. As well as my wife and our two children, the twelve included my parents, Edward and Elizabeth Knight, my younger brother Robert and my elder sister Penny with her husband and three children who lived on the top floor of Chawton House. Some years we were joined by my sister Anne and her family who lived in Buckinghamshire, or my older brother Richard and his family, who lived in Gloucestershire. (Richard Knight was my father’s heir and is the current owner of Chawton House.)
For family lunches and special occasions', we ate in the Great Hall and sat at Edward Austen’s grand dining table. This table is now in the Dining Room at Chawton House and is the same one that was in use when Jane Austen visited the ‘Great House’, as she called it. As a young woman my mother had been to finishing school and completed a Cordon Bleu cookery course in Paris, so was a very accomplished cook. None of us have ever been able to match her roast potatoes!
After lunch we would take a walk. On rare occasions we still saw snow in April but there were many years with brilliant warm, dry weather and we spent a lot of time outside enjoying the grounds of Chawton House. At last, we could leave off scarves and hats and change our thick winter coats for lighter jackets.
Early in the month there were still swathes of daffodils sweeping in front of the ha-ha. Later there would be wonderful bluebells in the woods. Trees and shrubs would lose their stark greyness and take on a green tinge as leaves sprouted. Wild birds would be nesting and could be seen flying about with desirable items in their beaks to make their nests – including feathers, twigs, moss and sheep’s wool.
We walked across the front paddocks and fields, up through the woodlands and, at the very top, into the walled garden built by Jane Austen’s brother Edward (my third great grandfather) as a kitchen garden. Jane mentions Edward’s plans to build the walled garden in a letter but did not live to see it created. The walls provide protection from the worst of the weather - there is no wind, less frost and somehow it captures the warmth of the sun.
Glasshouses ran along the south wall, painted white inside, and in earlier times a nearby boiler had heated the pipes that ran through. The heat from the pipes and the sun’s reflection on the white walls heated the glasshouses to the temperatures needed to grow exotic fruits not easily available in earlier times. There once would have been several gardeners maintaining the lawns, wilderness and herbaceous borders as well as the walled garden. I remember as a child there were still vines, peaches, tomatoes and other fruit and vegetables brought on early in the glasshouses.
My parents hadn’t afforded gardeners for decades. My brother and I kept the lawns well mowed, but the walled garden was unkempt and overgrown. With the help of some friends, my wife and I cleared the walled garden and prepared the ground to grow fruit and vegetables for the family.
To warm the earth and provide shelter for small plants we used old glass and metal cloches - like a mini greenhouse over them. In April we planted early crops like onions and new potatoes in the ground and seeds in trays in a greenhouse I had built against an outbuilding close to the house.
We did not have access to a water tap in the walled garden so had to cart water by hand in buckets all the way up the lawns. The ground was sheltered so did not dry out too much, but as the vegetables grew in the later, warmer months this became an onerous task.
We were very lucky to have extensive and beautiful grounds at Chawton House, but nothing was easy.
The warmer weather brought more visitors to Chawton, and sometime after Easter, my mother would open her tearoom in the Great Hall for the summer season bringing visitors into Chawton House every weekend. The rest of the house and gardens were private in those days; it was our family home.
I still live close by and it’s nice to see so many people enjoy the house and grounds today. With gardeners dedicated to the upkeep of the grounds once more, the walled garden looks wonderful.
© Jeremy Knight
Life has a way of reminding us what truly matters. My husband's cancer treatment kept me in Australia last year, and it's now been two years since I've been with Dad in person, reminiscing and listening to his stories of Chawton. Reading his April memories today, I feel both the ache of distance and the joy of anticipation – in just one month, I'll be back in England for what promises to be an extraordinary visit.
Dad and I will stand together for two momentous occasions in Jane's 250th anniversary year. We have the profound honour of unveiling the new statue of Jane Austen in Alton this June, and together with our extended family, we'll host Jane's 250th Birthday Celebration at Chawton House. These moments feel especially precious – not just as historic events, but as a reunion of past and present, of family and legacy.
I can hardly wait to walk those familiar paths with him again, to see the summer gardens in bloom, and to create new memories. Until then, these seasonal glimpses he's sharing with us all are windows into the world that shaped us both.
Caroline
What wonderful cherished memories he shares. Thank you.
Nice a nice little behind the scenes look at Chawton from the perspective of those who lived there. Thank you for sharing.