In the middle of the commemoration of the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, many places in England—and especially Bath—have been awash in celebrations. I was unable to attend, but the busyness of the town, as related by residents and tourists, caused me to revisit and re-enjoy my own travels there a few years back.
Beyond the annual promenade during the Jane Austen Festival, my traveling group enjoyed a tour of Bath’s pleasure gardens. We began at the Holburne Museum, which now as then is the entrance to Sydney Gardens. In Austen’s day the building was called the Sydney Hotel, though it was not a hotel in the traditional sense but a place of entertainment.
In Austen’s time, all of the activities—public breakfasts, music, fireworks, and special events—began at this building. The Gardens were behind. The public could buy subscriptions for a season of activities. A few special events required additional admission. Austen is known to have participated in some public breakfasts.
Our tour was led by an architectural historian by the name of Moira, a knowledgeable, energetic, theatrical, R-trilling woman of a certain age and build. She walked us through—literally—the layout of the Gardens, which as originally constructed had a variety of features including a canal, Chinese-style bridges, a waterfall, serpentine promenades, a grotto, and a labyrinth.
“Progress” has reduced the size of the Gardens and eliminated a few features. The Great Western Railway swallowed the labyrinth in the 1830s, for instance. Most of the Gardens remain, however, and it’s still a lovely place to stroll of a pleasant afternoon, as Jane and her sister Cassandra were fond of doing.
On our Sunday, the Gardens were full of visitors, including a few dressed in Regency wear. (Being in period dress during the Jane Austen Festival is not only a pleasure for many people but also can lead to discounts at some haberdashers and eateries.)
Our group featured a stunning young woman in a blue Regency walking outfit carrying complementary ivory parasol and gloves. Her lovely Regency-ness gives credence to the concept of time machines.
One thing that surprised me was the extent to which the Gardens sloped up from the entrance. Given that the canal cuts across the Gardens along the back, I had assumed that the elevation would be relatively flat or would slope downhill rather than up.
We finished at Jane Austen’s three-story house at 4 Sydney Place across the street from the Gardens. The building is rather austere, with a plain front of light-colored local Bath stone. Next to the red door is a small plaque giving the dates of Jane’s tenure there. The family lived at Sydney Place from 1801 to 1804, after her father retired and they moved from the country in Steventon, about eighty miles east, to Bath where her parents had met and married as young people. (And where they hoped for their daughters to find husbands.)
The location of their house, just off the Great Pulteney Bridge and across from the Gardens, was, however, too expensive for a retired clergyman. They ultimately moved to cheaper quarters. The plaque incorrectly gives the end date as 1805. Likely, the person who commissioned the sign assumed that the family moved upon the death of her father in January 1805; in fact, it was earlier.
We couldn’t go into the house because it’s now part of a boutique hotel group—so any Janeite can settle in for a long weekend. The price is somewhat dear! A member of our group who stayed there years ago says it was well decorated and had a number of Austen-related books but, curiously, none of Austen’s own novels. Interior photos of the apartment are not clear enough to determine whether her works now grace the residence.
Moira, our guide from before, had a book of illustrations that she used to point out details of the Gardens to our tour group. I noticed that one illustration showed a hot-air balloon, which she did not mention. I discreetly asked whether that drawing might be of the flight from the Gardens in September 1802.
She laughed with surprise and excitement. The illustration was from a much later flight in Vauxhall Gardens, London—there is no artwork apparently of the 1802 flight by Monsieur André-Jacques Garnerin in Bath. The Bath balloon was intended to remain tethered, being moved about by ropes above the heads of the admiring crowd. But the balloon got away, causing great mischief and alarm.
Moira wondered how an ordinary modern-day American might know about Bath’s aviation history. Before I could answer, my companions leapt in to explain that I had written historical fiction about Jane Austen, and the inciting incident comes when she is carried off in a runaway balloon from Sydney Gardens. Furthermore, they announced, after hearing all the details about the Sydney Gardens, the Sydney Place home, and the balloon flight—I had got all the details right.
That trilogy is The Marriage of Miss Jane Austen, which is available from Jane Austen Books and Amazon. The series traces love from a charming courtship through the richness and complexity of marriage and concludes with a test of the heroine’s courage and moral convictions. A “boxed set” that combines all three in an e-book format is also available.
I have also written literary criticism on Austen. That book, Jane Austen and the Creation of Modern Fiction: Six Novels in “a Style Entirely New,” investigates her development as a writer and shows how her innovations as a prose stylist set the course for modern fiction. It is available from Jane Austen Books at a special low price.
Leave a Reply