BEYOND BATH

JANE AUSTEN’S HOUSE MUSEUM, CHAWTON (BELOW)

After the death of their father, Austen and her sister, along with their mother, fell on hard times and had to rely on the largesse of their brother, Edward. He had inherited Chawton House Estate in Hampshire, with a vacant cottage, where the women lived from 1809 to 1817. “Like the contrast of Barton Cottage and Norland Park in Sense and Sensibility, Austen knew what it was like to be a poor relation,” says Madelaine Smith, spokesperson for the house, now a museum. “But it also brought something new to her writing. She could be creative again.” Here, she feverishly wrote Mansfield

Park, Emma and Persuasion while revising three manuscripts.

LYME PARK, CHESHIRE (BELOW)

“Mr Darcy got wet at Lyme Park, but I’m keeping dry” reads the cheeky slogan on the umbrellas you can borrow/buy at this stately home, a reference to the iconic scene in which Colin Firth (aka Mr Darcy in TV mini-series Pride and Prejudice) emerged from the lake, setting Elizabeth Bennet’s heart aflutter. “We still have marriage proposals by men dressed as Mr Darcy,” says head gardener Gary Rainford. Mr Darcy, however, never emerged from the lake in front of the house, but instead one in a copse on the grounds.

CHATSWORTH HOUSE, DERBYSHIRE

Some suggest Austen’s description of Pemberley matches Chatsworth House: “It was a large, handsome stone building, standing well on rising ground, and backed by a ridge of high woody hills; and in front, a stream of some natural importance was swelled into greater”. She was living at the Rutland Arms Hotel in nearby Bakewell when she wrote the novel, so it seems likely she had Chatsworth in mind. The house, a not-to-be-missed attraction in its own right, was used as the location for Pemberley in the film adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.