Jane Austen 2 (18,19,20/8)

Due to poor communications, Allan found he needed to be near Guildford for a meeting about a potential project meaning we had to go to the opposite side of London and then back again a couple of days later, so we decided we would head for Winchester where Jill would spend the day.

Heather on the hill

After detouring via Wendy & Ralphs for a brief cup of tea and a short walk as they are on the edge of the Peak District, doing some shopping in Hathersage and admiring the heather which was out in bloom and making the hillsides purple, we headed south.

Winchester Cathedral

The next day while Allan went off to his meeting, Jill explored Winchester Cathedral despite the expensive (compared to other churches we visited) entry fee. Her main reason was to see the grave of Jane Austen. The original tombstone mentions nothing about her writing, but her brother had a brass plaques erected to this affect several years after she was buried, and then money was raised to pay for a stained glass window.

The cathedral itself is very large and very beautiful. There is still evidence both inside and out of its Norman heritage with the rounded arches and huge round piers of the transepts, but most of the building is in the perpendicular style with slightly pointed arches. There is a stunning 15^th century screen behind the present alter. In one of the smaller chapels you can still see the 12^th century frescoes. Before the Dissolution, churches must have been very colourful places. At the eastern end of the cathedral beautiful medieval tiles still for m the floor. There were a lot of people around Jane Austen's tomb earlier, so Jill went back to it again before leaving the cathedral. Someone had placed fresh flowers under the brass plaque.

Jane's plaque

Continuing the Austen theme, Jill headed towards the house where she and Cassandra (Jane's sister) moved to so that Jane could be close to her doctor during the las couple of months of her life. To get to the house, Jill passed some very old half-timbered houses, one of which had been the former bishop's court house, and the other the Pilgrim's Hall. This dated from 1308, and was where pilgrims visiting the shrine of St. Swithun were lodged. She also popped into St Swithun-upon-Kingsgate, a tiny church built on top of an archway of one of the city's surviving gates. It wasn't very large and it still had its medieval beam roof.

When Allan got back, we did a further walk around the old city and then went to the “Bangkok Brasserie” where Jill chose “Colin Firth's Mango Thai Chicken” (of course!) a dish apparently developed for him (he was a local boy), and 89p goes to a foundation which supports displaced people and refugees.

The next day we headed to Ashwell (Hertfordshire) to stay with Allan's sailing friends from his student days, Terry and Wendy (yes, another Wendy). On the way we detoured via Chawton. The reason? Jane Austen, of course! This is where she lived during her productive period. Jill found it quite unreal that 200 years ago Jane would have been walking through the cottage as we were, and certainly through the gardens if the day was like the beautiful day we were experiencing. Apparently she wrote most mornings after breakfast, so she would have spent some time at the small writing desk in the dining parlour.

Jane's writing desk

She would still recognise the village as little seems to have changed since she lived there. There have been some alterations to the house over the intervening years but externally it has changed little. It is still red brick, and the thatched houses next door are still there. Jane's house has undergone several functions since the Austin ownership – as a pub, farmer's cottages and now a museum in her memory. Jane was not a materialistic person, so there is very little memorabilia left which has a strong provenance attached to it. There are several pieces of jewellery, her writing table, a handkerchief, some letters, and of course the quilt. This is a quilt that Jane, Cassandra and her mother made, and which many others (including Jill) have copied the style. Jill was interested to see how they had pieced it together, and noted that there was little fabric wasted. Jill decided that the diamonds in her quilt were more acute than the original and she did not go to the extent of stitching a diamond border as that would have been too onerous.

St Alban's was our next stop for yet another history lesson. We went there before in 1980, remembered it had a chequered history and wanted to brush up on it. We've probably commented before that history must be easy to teach in the UK as there is so much evidence around of former ages.

The different building materials and styles are evident
from the outside of St Albans'

St Alban's was originally the Roman town of Verulamium. In the 3^rd century a Roman by the name of Alban met and hid a Christian priest who was being persecuted. Alban was influenced by Amphibalus, the priest, and was converted to Christianity. When the hiding place was discovered, Alban exchanged places with the priest, refused to denounce his new faith and suffered the fate that would have been meted out to the priest. He was beheaded. Apparently about 10 years after Constantine declared Christianity to be the faith of the Roman Empire, a church was built on this stie to commemorate Alban. Later Offa rebuilt the church, and then the Normans arrived. In 1077 when the present cathedral was started, there was lack of good building stone in the immediate vicinity, but the old Roman town ruins were close by, so of course that site was robbed. Thus the tower of the cathedral, and what is left of the Norman building, is constructed of recycled Roman bricks. Inside the walls were plastered and the arches painted to look as if they had been built of stone. During the Middle Ages, the north side of the nave fell down and was rebuilt in the Gothic style. The building still remains in a wonderful mixture of architectural styles.

During renovation work, frescoes thought to be from the 12^th or 13^th century have been discovered under the lime wash. The wash was probably applied in the walls during the Dissolution of the monasteries edicts forced many such paintings to be destroyed. As further necessary restoration work is carried out, we are sure more history will be uncovered.