Reading into Austen
Reading into Austen
With Pride and Prejudice hitting the big screen on Friday, literary tours of England's countryside are jumping on the Jane Austen bandwagon. Deanna MacDonald absorbs the Peak District's rich literary lore, from a classic coach inn to Pemberley's stand-in
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
November 9, 2005 at 2:00 AM EDT
Bakewell, England — ‘And of this place, I might have been mistress!” This probably isn't what most people think when they first see Chatsworth, the palatial residence of the Duke of Devonshire, nestled in the hills of England's Peak District. But it was what I thought as I walked toward its classical façade on a sunny summer afternoon.
Any Jane Austen fans worth their salt will recognize that phrase, and understand that I am no dispossessed duchess, but stealing a line from Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth is referring to Pemberley, the grand manor house of her suitor, the brooding Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Pemberley, of course, is pure fiction. But Chatsworth is real, and is believed to have been the model for Pemberley. This theory (there are actually several) has had the distinction of being committed to celluloid in the new film version of Pride and Prejudice (in theatres on Friday), which uses Chatsworth as the shooting location for Pemberley scenes.
Austen's tales of love and marriage are fanatically popular worldwide. There are Austen societies from Berlin to Buenos Aires, an annual Jane Austen Festival in Bath, and mammoth chat rooms — such as the Republic of Pemberley at www.pemberley.com — devoted to her and her books. Pride and Prejudice is still one the most popular books in the English language, and has inspired everything from Bridget Jones's Diary to numerous television and film adaptations. And it has even influenced my own travels.
Chatsworth, South Front & Canal (© Gary Rogers)
Related Articles
From the archives
Pack your bags
Photogallery
In pictures
There are obvious tourist sites associated with Austen, such as her homes in Chawton and the spa town of Bath. There are also guided tours that follow in her footsteps. England's Hampshire Safaris, for instance, is offering a new Jane Austen Country tour that takes visitors around the parts of Hampshire where the author spent the first 25 years of her life, before she moved to Bath. It travels through picturesque countryside using the roads she may have walked, and visits churches, villages and country houses that locals say inspired her novels.
The Jane Austen Society of America, meanwhile, sponsors themed Austen tours, such as “Jane Austen's Countryside,” as well as three-week study tours to Hampshire, Bath and beyond. There is even a series of short-break tours offered by the tourist boards of Lincolnshire, the Peak District and Derbyshire to sites associated with the new film.
On a recent visit to England, along with two friends, I took the opportunity to visit Chatsworth. Strangely enough, this was not my first “Pemberley” visit. A year earlier, I had made a walk along the North Downs Way in Kent from Canterbury to Godmersham, the former home of Jane Austen's brother, an 18th-century mansion that could also fit the Pemberley description. I had also visited Lyme Park in Derbyshire, the mansion used as Pemberley in the well-known 1995 BBC miniseries. But somehow, Chatsworth felt more like the real, yet imaginary, thing.
We booked a room in the Rutland Arms Hotel in the picturesque Peak District village of Bakewell, a short walk from Chatsworth. This Georgian hotel still has the vague air of an Austen-era coach inn, if only in its location at the village's crossroads (and in its air of genteel decay). In most other aspects, it fit the bill of the classic English inn, complete with cozy pub, chintz upholstery and questionable plumbing. Here, so the story goes, Austen stayed in 1811 and rewrote the final version of Pride and Prejudice.
Like much Austen lore, this claim has little basis in fact. Bakewell's tourist office takes a diplomatic official line, stating only that it has “never been proven that Jane Austen stayed in Bakewell.”
But the hotel staff had clearly seen our type — giddy fans — before. “Oh yes,” responded a bored-looking desk clerk, “[Austen] stayed here, up in room No. 2.”
Sure enough, outside this second-floor room, is a plaque stating that Bakewell and the Rutland Arms were the inspirations for the town and inn where Elizabeth Bennet stays and receives a visit from Fitzwilliam Darcy. This is heady stuff for Austen enthusiasts, and in the two or three minutes we lingered by the room imagining Darcy dashing up the stairs, others arrived to do the same thing.
The sign also states that “we have reason to believe that Miss Austen visited Chatsworth, only three miles away.” From the 18th-century onward, it was common for well-to-do tourists to visit stately homes, and the characters in Pride and Prejudice do exactly that during their visit to Derbyshire. So the next morning, with trail map in hand, we set out on foot for Chatsworth.
Both Bakewell and Chatsworth are located in Peak District National Park, one of England's most popular parks with more than 2,500 kilometres of footpaths. We followed one of these out of town across Bakewell's 14th-century stone bridge over the River Wye and up into the surrounding hills. After a gentle ascent, we were rewarded with a panorama of undulating countryside crisscrossed by dry-stone walls marking pastures for sheep and cattle, a bucolic backdrop worthy of a John Constable painting — or a Jane Austen novel, whose heroines are often fond of long country walks.
Chatsworth appeared about an hour later, tucked into a cleverly manicured landscape by baroque landscape architect Lancelot (Capability) Brown. Precisely placed trees, gardens, buildings and a river create the perfect reflection of the 18th-century concept of the picturesque.
Chatsworth today is run by the Cavendish family (the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire), who, in order to keep the house in family hands (which it has been since 1549), have turned it into a booming business. There's a working farm, gift shops, a restaurant, adventure playground and, of course, paid visits to the house and gardens. The Cavendishes were definitely earning their keep on this Saturday, for as we came closer we began to think that the majority of Chatsworth's 600,000 annual visitors had come that day.
Our visit was not exactly as Austen's would have been. There was no housekeeper “to be applied to” — rather a harassed ticket-seller — but the house itself kept its elegant grandeur even packed to its gilded rim with visitors.
We spent more than three hours exploring the house — informally known as the “National Gallery of the North” for its extensive art collection — before sheer hunger led us out into the historic gardens to join the crowds picnicking beside baroque fountains and a topiary maze. Lounging, we began planning other literary tours.
After all, to paraphrase Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that one good trip inspires another.
Special to The Globe and Mail
With Pride and Prejudice hitting the big screen on Friday, literary tours of England's countryside are jumping on the Jane Austen bandwagon. Deanna MacDonald absorbs the Peak District's rich literary lore, from a classic coach inn to Pemberley's stand-in
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail
November 9, 2005 at 2:00 AM EDT
Bakewell, England — ‘And of this place, I might have been mistress!” This probably isn't what most people think when they first see Chatsworth, the palatial residence of the Duke of Devonshire, nestled in the hills of England's Peak District. But it was what I thought as I walked toward its classical façade on a sunny summer afternoon.
Any Jane Austen fans worth their salt will recognize that phrase, and understand that I am no dispossessed duchess, but stealing a line from Elizabeth Bennet, the heroine of Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Elizabeth is referring to Pemberley, the grand manor house of her suitor, the brooding Fitzwilliam Darcy.
Pemberley, of course, is pure fiction. But Chatsworth is real, and is believed to have been the model for Pemberley. This theory (there are actually several) has had the distinction of being committed to celluloid in the new film version of Pride and Prejudice (in theatres on Friday), which uses Chatsworth as the shooting location for Pemberley scenes.
Austen's tales of love and marriage are fanatically popular worldwide. There are Austen societies from Berlin to Buenos Aires, an annual Jane Austen Festival in Bath, and mammoth chat rooms — such as the Republic of Pemberley at www.pemberley.com — devoted to her and her books. Pride and Prejudice is still one the most popular books in the English language, and has inspired everything from Bridget Jones's Diary to numerous television and film adaptations. And it has even influenced my own travels.
Chatsworth, South Front & Canal (© Gary Rogers)
Related Articles
From the archives
Pack your bags
Photogallery
In pictures
There are obvious tourist sites associated with Austen, such as her homes in Chawton and the spa town of Bath. There are also guided tours that follow in her footsteps. England's Hampshire Safaris, for instance, is offering a new Jane Austen Country tour that takes visitors around the parts of Hampshire where the author spent the first 25 years of her life, before she moved to Bath. It travels through picturesque countryside using the roads she may have walked, and visits churches, villages and country houses that locals say inspired her novels.
The Jane Austen Society of America, meanwhile, sponsors themed Austen tours, such as “Jane Austen's Countryside,” as well as three-week study tours to Hampshire, Bath and beyond. There is even a series of short-break tours offered by the tourist boards of Lincolnshire, the Peak District and Derbyshire to sites associated with the new film.
On a recent visit to England, along with two friends, I took the opportunity to visit Chatsworth. Strangely enough, this was not my first “Pemberley” visit. A year earlier, I had made a walk along the North Downs Way in Kent from Canterbury to Godmersham, the former home of Jane Austen's brother, an 18th-century mansion that could also fit the Pemberley description. I had also visited Lyme Park in Derbyshire, the mansion used as Pemberley in the well-known 1995 BBC miniseries. But somehow, Chatsworth felt more like the real, yet imaginary, thing.
We booked a room in the Rutland Arms Hotel in the picturesque Peak District village of Bakewell, a short walk from Chatsworth. This Georgian hotel still has the vague air of an Austen-era coach inn, if only in its location at the village's crossroads (and in its air of genteel decay). In most other aspects, it fit the bill of the classic English inn, complete with cozy pub, chintz upholstery and questionable plumbing. Here, so the story goes, Austen stayed in 1811 and rewrote the final version of Pride and Prejudice.
Like much Austen lore, this claim has little basis in fact. Bakewell's tourist office takes a diplomatic official line, stating only that it has “never been proven that Jane Austen stayed in Bakewell.”
But the hotel staff had clearly seen our type — giddy fans — before. “Oh yes,” responded a bored-looking desk clerk, “[Austen] stayed here, up in room No. 2.”
Sure enough, outside this second-floor room, is a plaque stating that Bakewell and the Rutland Arms were the inspirations for the town and inn where Elizabeth Bennet stays and receives a visit from Fitzwilliam Darcy. This is heady stuff for Austen enthusiasts, and in the two or three minutes we lingered by the room imagining Darcy dashing up the stairs, others arrived to do the same thing.
The sign also states that “we have reason to believe that Miss Austen visited Chatsworth, only three miles away.” From the 18th-century onward, it was common for well-to-do tourists to visit stately homes, and the characters in Pride and Prejudice do exactly that during their visit to Derbyshire. So the next morning, with trail map in hand, we set out on foot for Chatsworth.
Both Bakewell and Chatsworth are located in Peak District National Park, one of England's most popular parks with more than 2,500 kilometres of footpaths. We followed one of these out of town across Bakewell's 14th-century stone bridge over the River Wye and up into the surrounding hills. After a gentle ascent, we were rewarded with a panorama of undulating countryside crisscrossed by dry-stone walls marking pastures for sheep and cattle, a bucolic backdrop worthy of a John Constable painting — or a Jane Austen novel, whose heroines are often fond of long country walks.
Chatsworth appeared about an hour later, tucked into a cleverly manicured landscape by baroque landscape architect Lancelot (Capability) Brown. Precisely placed trees, gardens, buildings and a river create the perfect reflection of the 18th-century concept of the picturesque.
Chatsworth today is run by the Cavendish family (the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire), who, in order to keep the house in family hands (which it has been since 1549), have turned it into a booming business. There's a working farm, gift shops, a restaurant, adventure playground and, of course, paid visits to the house and gardens. The Cavendishes were definitely earning their keep on this Saturday, for as we came closer we began to think that the majority of Chatsworth's 600,000 annual visitors had come that day.
Our visit was not exactly as Austen's would have been. There was no housekeeper “to be applied to” — rather a harassed ticket-seller — but the house itself kept its elegant grandeur even packed to its gilded rim with visitors.
We spent more than three hours exploring the house — informally known as the “National Gallery of the North” for its extensive art collection — before sheer hunger led us out into the historic gardens to join the crowds picnicking beside baroque fountains and a topiary maze. Lounging, we began planning other literary tours.
After all, to paraphrase Austen, it is a truth universally acknowledged that one good trip inspires another.
Special to The Globe and Mail
Comments
Post a Comment