Chawton is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the

East Hampshire East Hampshire is a local government district in Hampshire, England. Its council is based in Petersfield. Other towns are Alton and Bordon. The district was originally to be known as the District Council of Petersfield. It comprised 42 sea ...

district of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...

, England. The village lies within the

South Downs National Park The South Downs National Park is England's newest national park, designated on 31 March 2010. The park, covering an area of in southern England, stretches for from Winchester in the west to Eastbourne in the east through the counties of Hamp ...

and is famous as the home of

Jane Austen Jane Austen (; 16 December 1775 – 18 July 1817) was an English novelist known primarily for her six major novels, which interpret, critique, and comment upon the British landed gentry at the end of the 18th century. Austen's plots of ...

for the last eight years of her life.

History

Chawton's recorded history begins in the Domesday survey of 1086. The village held nineteen free residents, eight smallholders, six slaves (part of the sixty-seven slaves in the area from Alresford to the ridge parishes) and woodland with fifty pigs. In the 13th century, there was a royal manor house. The owner, John St John, served as deputy to Edward I in Scotland. Henry III visited the manor on over forty occasions. The descendants of John Knight, who built the present

Chawton House Chawton House is a Grade II* listed Elizabethan manor house in Hampshire. It is run as a historic property and also houses the research library of The Centre for the Study of Early Women's Writing, 1600–1830, using the building's connectio ...

at the time of the Armada (1588), added to it and modified the landscape in ways that reflect changes in politics, religion and taste. One of those descendants was Elizabeth Knight, whose progresses were marked by the ringing of church bells and whose two husbands both had to adopt her surname. Later in the 18th century,

's brother

Edward Austen Knight Edward Austen Knight (born Edward Austen; 7 October 1767 – 19 November 1852) was the third eldest brother of Jane Austen, and provided her with the use of a cottage in Chawton where she lived for the last years of her life (now Jane Austen's ...

(who had been adopted by the Knights) succeeded, and in 1809 was able to move his mother and sisters to a cottage in the village. Chawton never developed into a settlement of substance, ‘possibly because the lords of the manor wished to keep the area for themselves’. Chawton’s private parliamentary enclosure took place in 1740-1 when a bad harvest followed a severe winter and eighteen food riots were recorded over large parts of the country. However, the Chawton act was mostly about sheep and its private act was merely the confirmation of an agreement already made. There is no mention at Chawton of encroachments, peasants’ cottages, or peasants’ rights of common forage and the rest. This was entirely an arrangement between the owners of the land for their individual benefit. From lists in Leigh’s book of Chawton Manor, one might have expected over thirty families to have held an interest, but all but one were already gone, not just from the Commons, but, soon, from the village entirely. ‘A thick cultural and social wedge was inserted between the improving husbandmen, the better sort of the parish, and the poor.’ Enclosure was nothing new in Chawton. In 1605, a court held by John Knight recognised that for the last thirty or forty years a ‘great part’ of the commons had been enclosed by tenants with the consent of the lord. However, these tenants still kept the same number of sheep on the reduced common land to everyone’s detriment. The enclosed lands at Chawton in 1740 came from the 312 acres of Common and from 309 acres made up of seven common fields: Ridgefield, Southfield, Northfield, Upper and Lower Eastfield, Whitedown and Winstreetfield. The lord, Thomas Knight, newly in position, did very well. His existing local estate already comprised fifteen houses and 1,569 acres: 734 of arable land, 108 of pasture, 56 meadow, 615 woodland and 55 rough heath. Now, through enclosure, he added 156 acres from the common and 143 acres from the common fields, 48 per cent of the available total, and almost 2,000 acres altogether in Hampshire. Knight’s allotment was increased by the herbage of all the highways on the Common, and, because he was the lord, ‘free liberty’ by June 1742 to ‘sell, cut down, grub up, take, cart, and carry away’ all the timber trees, pollard trees, bushes and wood, anywhere on the Common for which his workmen could enter any allotment at any time.

Visitor attractions

Chawton Cottage

Chawton Cottage, Jane Austen's house and garden are open to the public.

Chawton House

, the 400-year-old Grade II* listed Elizabethan

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were held the lord's manorial courts, communal meals w ...

that once belonged to Jane Austen's brother and of land, has been restored as part of a major international project to establish the new Centre for the Study of Early Women's Writing, 1600–1830. It houses a collection of over 9,000 volumes, together with some related manuscripts. Visitors can see the relationship between the library, the house, the estate and a working farm of the 18th and early 19th centuries. In 1992 a 125-year lease on the house was purchased for £1.25 million by a foundation established by Sandra Lerner, co-founder of

Cisco Systems Cisco Systems, Inc., commonly known as Cisco, is an American-based multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, ...

St Nicholas' Church

Chawton has a single church, St Nicholas. A church has stood on the site in Chawton since at least 1270 when it was mentioned in a diocesan document. The church suffered a disastrous fire in 1871 which destroyed all but the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

. The rebuilt church was designed by

Sir Arthur Blomfield Sir Arthur William Blomfield (6 March 182930 October 1899) was an English architect. He became president of the Architectural Association in 1861; a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects in 1867 and vice-president of the RIBA in ...

and is now listed Grade 2*. The churchyard was reserved for burial for the Knight family, and the graves include that of Jane Austen's mother and sister, both called Cassandra.

Services

Chawton C of E Primary School is the only school in Chawton. It is within the

Diocese of Winchester The Diocese of Winchester forms part of the Province of Canterbury of the Church of England. Founded in 676, it is one of the older dioceses in England. It once covered Wessex, many times its present size which is today most of the historic enl ...

and accepts children from ages four to eleven, and has close ties with St Nicholas's church. There has been a school on the site since about 1840, and the site sits opposite the village green and cricket field. On Winchester Road, which runs through the village, there is a tea shop and small shop opposite Jane Austen's house called Cassandra's Cup, which is named after Jane Austen's sister. Just down the road from this is a Fuller's pub called The Greyfriar which has an oak beamed traditional bar, a secluded beer garden and a large car park. Also on Winchester Road is the Village Hall. Adjacent to Gosport Road lies a green containing a cricket pitch and the home of Chawton Cricket Club, a newly refurbished playground and a set of allotments.

Transport

Chawton has two road exits, one leading to a roundabout connected to the A31 and the A32, and the other to the A339/B3006 Selborne Road. The nearest railway station is 1.7 miles (2.7 km) northeast of the village, at

Alton Alton may refer to: People *Alton (given name) *Alton (surname) Places Australia *Alton National Park, Queensland * Alton, Queensland, a town in the Shire of Balonne Canada * Alton, Ontario *Alton, Nova Scotia New Zealand * Alton, New Zealand, ...

References

External links

Chawton village

Chawton BellringersThe Jane Austen Society of the United KingdomChawton Cricket Club The Greyfriar Website
{{authority control Villages in Hampshire Tourist attractions in Hampshire Places associated with Jane Austen