Inquiring readers: Here’s another delightful contribution from the ever creative Tony Grant. If you can’t get enough of his work and photographs, visit his blog, London Calling, where he shares his images from his many trips all over Great Britain. A little over 200 hundred years ago (December, 2015), Emma was first published. This is the first of a number of articles related to that novel on this blog this year.
Emma, written by Jane Austen between 21st January 1814 and the 29th March 1815, is unique amongst her six published novels because it’s entire setting is one small country town, the fictitious Highbury and Hartfield, located in one county, Surrey. Other places, real and fictitious are mentioned and have roles in the story too but most of those, apart from London, are located in Surrey as well. All Austen’s other novels move between at least two major locations, Bath, London, Lyme Regis and so on. Her two unfinished novels, Sanditon and The Watsons also have one major location each, Sanditon, a fictitious seaside resort of the sort that were being developed in the Georgian period on the south coast and at other coastal places. In the case of The Watsons, it is another novel that starts in Surrey and specifically in and around, a real town this time, Dorking. The Turnpike Road and The White Hart Inn are real locations in and around Dorking. The Watsons was not developed beyond this setting.
The places mentioned in Emma that are real include Box Hill, the River Mole, Richmond, Kingston, Weymouth, Cobham and London of course. The fictitious places are Highbury and Hartfield, Donwell Abbey, Rosings and Maple Grove. Randalls, might refer to an actual house called Randalls near Leatherhead not far from Box Hill.
Many people think Leatherhead (images above) is the template for Highbury and Hartfield. However, if you ever have the time to travel around Surrey villages and towns, there are similarities between them all. A grand house and estate is often located outside the town. There are a variety of still existing Georgian town houses ranging from those that would have housed well to do middle class businessmen to cottages for the working man and his family. All towns have an ancient church, probably first built in the middle ages, along with a rectory.Many of the rectories, interestingly look Georgian in design, however many of them are much older, probably Tudor in construction, constructed with great oak beams, with Georgian fronts added. All towns have old inns and what were once assembly rooms.
For instance, Cobham is mentioned in Emma. In one scene with Mr Knightly, Emma extolls the virtues of Mr Weston,
“ … ever since his particular kindness last September twelve month in writing that note, at twelve o’clock at night, on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlet fever at Cobham, I have been convinced that there could not be a more feeling heart nor a better man in existence.-“
Cobham is located not far from Leatherhead and Box Hill. I have walked around it often and the little bits of information about Highbury and Hartfield that Austen puts into the novel fit Cobham just as well as Leatherhead or a number of other towns and villages in Surrey. I think Highbury and Hartfield therefore is a sort of generic Surrey county town. It is after all the relationships between the characters that matter in the novel.
Jane Austen gives details describing the miles from Highbury and Hartfield to various places. It is 16 miles from London, 9 miles from Richmond and 7 miles from Box Hill. How more detailed could you be? These coordinates actually give you a spot on the Leatherhead to Kingston Road at a crossroads called, Malden Rushett. There are a couple of Victorian cottages there and nowadays a garden centre. It is mostly still surrounded by fields as it would have been in the early 19th century. The road comes from Dorking just south of Box Hill and passes through Leatherhead on its way to Kingston. It would, without doubt, have been the road that Mr Knightley and Mr Martin travelled along to get to the markets in Kingston. Also Frank Churchill / Weston, would have travelled this way to go to Richmond, which is further north of Kingston on the banks of the River Thames.
One can see the relation between Kingston Upon Thames and Richmond in this Google map image
Perhaps the mileage Austen gives us for the location of Highbury and Hartbury is all part of her play on words and riddles that permeate Emma. The mileage gives us the impression that this must be a real place that actually exists, although it doesn’t actually exist. Her choice of names real and fictional play games with us too. However, we can start to interpret the words and names she uses. For instance the derivation of, bury, used as a suffix to the name of a town comes from Old English. It means ,burh, or fortified place. A fortified place can be interpreted as defensive and insular. Then we have a “High,” protected place and,” Hart,” which could refer to the,” heart,” but also a hart is a sort of deer. Is Jane referring to the heart of Englishness, the heart of what it means to be a community? Although Emma might be seen as an insular novel, just centered on the people of a generic Surrey town, it also refers to all towns and all communities. We can think about our own social groups and work colleagues and neighbours. I would not be surprised if our immediate associations number a similar number as the community described within the scope of Emma. Jane Austen not only plays with the names of places but also her characters. George Knightly, for instance, might refer to George IV the monarch and the name Knightly to a chivalrous connection. King, country and nobility of the true Englishman was an important concept, especially at the time Jane was writing Emma. It was published in the year that Waterloo was fought and won. It is also interesting to note Franck Churchill asking how much it would take for him to become a “citizen,” of Highbury and Hartfield. This is an oblique reference to France and the enemy the French. He is subtly made into the enemy. There are enough real places referred to in the novel for any visitor to Surrey today to explore and walk the streets and fields Jane Austen herself walked. We know that in 1814, Jane Austen visited her relatives, the Cookes, at Great Bookham and probably visited Box Hill with them. Maybe she decided to place one her major scenes on the hill at that time.
Richmond (above) in the 18th and 19th century was a place for the well off and the aristocracy as it was in previous centuries and still is today. Nearby was located Kew Palace, where “mad” King George III lived with his family, and set amongst beautiful grounds planted with trees and shrubs brought from various corners of the British Empire. Richmond Green in the centre of Richmond is to this day surrounded by grand houses and a beautiful theatre that originates from Georgian times. Along the Thames near Richmond the river is lined by grand houses and the estates of the aristocracy going back to Stuart times. Frank Churchill and his adopted family are wealthy and this is the place for them.
When Frank Churchill at last arrives in Highbury he meets Emma for the first time.
“Their subjects in general were such as belong to an opening acquaintance. On his side were the enquiries, – “Was she a horse woman? -Pleasant rides? -Pleasant walks? -Had they a large neighbourhood? – Highbury perhaps afforded society enough?-There were several pretty houses in and about it-Balls-had they balls?-Was it a musical society?”
A person who knows Richmond well is aware of the almost cynical comparisons Frank Churchill is making. He appears to be polite but every reader would know then that Highbury could not compare with Richmond.
Kingston upon Thames (above) , further down river from Richmond and about two miles closer to the fictional Highbury than Richmond, was a very different sort of place. It had three markets, a large important cattle market, a central general market selling vegetables, meat, fish and selling general merchandise. There was also a small apple market. Kingston was important as a coaching inn stop. The Castle Inn was the largest and most prestigious inn overlooking the main market area. The inn itself no longer exists but the building occupying its site contains the original Castle Inn staircase constructed in 1537.
Original Castle Inn staircase. Image @Tony Grant
It is a massive carved dark oak construction. Jane probably walked up its creaky steps and in her imagination, Mr Knightley and Mr Martin too. Kingston was the sort of place that Mr Martin and indeed Mr Knightly would visit regularly. The main central market still exists and there are buildings around it which originate from Georgian and much earlier times. The Druids Head pub is the only original 18th century coaching inn still in the market place. The shape and layout of the central market today would be recognized by both Jane Austen, who stopped in Kingston on her way to London often, and also her characters, Mr Martin and Mr Knightley. Austen writes an amusing scene in Emma, when Jane Fairfax is given the opportunity to play the pianoforte that was just delivered and Frank Churchill, Jane Fairfax, and Emma were crammed into Miss Bates’s living room. This crammed indecorous scene creates a comical picture, when Mr Knightley rides past and Miss Bates rushes outside to also invite him in too. He is about to comply with the request, but when he learns about all the others already inside he says in a loud voice, so that everybody can hear
“…….No, not now, I thank you. I could not stay two minutes. I must get on to Kingston as fast as I can.”
It might be the thought of adding to the already crowded interior that put him off, or it might have been the desire to avoid certain people at that time.
Kingston was a frequent place Jane Austen travelled through or stopped at on her way to London from Chawton to stay with her brother Henry. She experienced its atmosphere, its sights and its sounds. In a letter to Cassandra from Henrietta Street, dated Wednesday 15-Thursday 16 September 1813, Jane Austen writes.
“ had a very good journey-Weather and roads excellent- the three first stages for 1s-6d and our only misadventure the being delayed about a quarter of an hour at Kingston for Horses, and being obliged to put up with a p belonging to a Hackney Coach and their coachman which left no room on the barouche box for Lizzy who was to have gone her last stage as she did the first:- consequently we were all 4 within, which was a little crowd;- We arrived at quarter past 4-…”
Leatherhead,is supposed, by some people, to be the template for Highbury and Hartbury. It certainly has some of the features mentioned in Emma but I think also other towns and villages in Surrey have similarities with Highbury and Hartbury too. Its proximity to Box Hill and also the Kingston Road from Dorking does lend it some credence. The part of Surrey in Emma is the Vale of Mickleham, the area between Leatherhead and Dorking, including Box Hill.
Jane Austen describes the view:
“The considerable slope, at nearly the foot of which the Abbey stood, gradually acquired a steeper form beyond its grounds; and at half a mile distant was a bank of considerable abruptness and grandeur, well clothed with wood; and at the bottom of this bank, favourably placed and sheltered, rose the Abbey-Mill Farm, with meadows in front, and the river making a close and handsome curve around it.
It was a sweet view – sweet to the eye and the mind. English verdure, English culture, English comfort, seen under a sun bright, without being oppressive.”
I have a theory, though. Cobham is mentioned in Emma in a rather unusual way. It is mentioned by Emma when praising,
“that excellent Mr Weston.”
Mr Weston had shown Emma his, “particular kindness last September twelvemonth in writing that note , at twelve o’clock at night, on purpose to assure me that there was no scarlett fever at Cobham.”
There are some strange things about this. Why would he write the note so late at night? Was the note sent during the night? Why was it so important for Emma to know?
A few things occur to me. First, Emma is informed by Mr Weston that there is no scarlett fever at Cobham which means it is alright to go there. Is it alright for my flight of fancy to go there too? I am sure scarlet fever was not a good thing to catch in the 18th century. Jane’s first experience of Southampton, for example, when she was eight years of age attending Mrs Cawley’s school with Cassandra and her cousin Jane Cooper. The children caught an illness from troops landing in the town and Southampton had to be quarantined, so it must be a relief to the surrounding communities that Cobham is free of it but there is no other reference to anybody in the novel going to Cobham or wanting to go there. Its only addition to the story is that it shows Mr Martin’s rather obscure way of being marvellous. Why mention Cobham in this random way? Is this an aside, a joke with the reader, suggesting that Jane Austen used Cobham as the real template for Highbury and Hartfield? If you go to Cobham, which, incidentally, is only about two or three miles north west of Leatherhead and so not far from Boxhill, Kingston, and all the other places mentioned, it has many of the features of Highbury and Hatfield, including a grand manor and estate at Painshill, about one mile from the centre. The River Mole also runs nearby. It is a small village and much more compact than Leatherhead and would suit the closer community that Highbury and Hartfield seems to suggest rather than the larger town of Leatherhead. But that is just my surmise. Again, I must mention my previous observation that Highbury and Hartfield are really a sort of generic English town with features that you could find in most towns and villages in the 18th century. Quite often the same features are recognisable in many such places nowadays too.
The River Mole at Leatherhead. Image @Tony Grant
Jane Austen’s knowledge and experience of Surrey is extensive. She would have known may places in Surrey well. Jane Austen visited Great Bookham in 1799 and 1814. Great Bookham is about a mile south west of Leatherhead and not far from Box Hill. She went there to visit her mother’s relatives, the Reverend Samuel Cooke and his family. He was rector of Cotsford in Oxfordshire and vicar of Great Bookham. He was married to Cassandra Leigh, Mrs George Austen’s cousin. The Reverend Cooke was Jane Austen’s godfather. It has been suggested that while she stayed at Great Bookham she visted Box Hill and thus got the idea for that important location in Emma.
Town of Dorking from Box Hill. Image @Tony Grant
In her letters to Cassandra, Jane relates many trips she takes from Steventon and later Chawton to London to visit Henry. The journeys she makes are invariably along roads and through places in Surrey. Some other places in Surrey that Jane mentions are Painshill, Epsom, Claremont Park, Dorking, Guildford, Farnham, and the Hogs Back Hill. Dorking is very interesting from the point of view of Janes writing. Her unfinished novel, The Watsons, takes place almost entirely in Dorking. As it does not really feature in Emma I will not elaborate on it.
Jane Austen almost creates an intellectual game in Emma. The names of places suggest other meanings. Donwell, for instance. Does it suggest that Mr Knightley, who has a very patriotic name and suggests a chivalrous and ”knightly” character, has “DONE WELL,”? A very corny joke. Even her first readers in the early 19th century would have groaned at that, I am sure. She mixes real and imaginary places in her setting making all places sound convincing. She gives concrete directions to a place that does not exist, namely Highbury and Hartbury. She apparently relates the story of a small close community in a way that seems specific to them but is really universal in its descriptions of types of people and their interactions. Jane Austen sets up all these dichotomies. She really is playing with our minds in many ways and on different levels.
Sources:
- Jane Austen Was a Surrey Girl: http://www.surreyhills.org/jane-austen-was-a-surrey-girl/
- Jane Austen, A New Revelation, by Nicholas Ennos, Jane Austen Historical Society: http://www.leatherheadlocalhistory.org.uk/2015.htm#Friday%2016%20October
- Box Hill in Jane Austen’s Emma, by Tony Grant, Jane Austen in Vermont: https://janeausteninvermont.wordpress.com/2014/11/02/box-hill-in-jane-austens-emma-guest-post-by-tony-grant/
- High field and Hatfield, Perhaps, by Tony Grant, London Calling: http://general-southerner.blogspot.co.uk/2010/01/highfield-and-hartfield-perhaps.html
- EMMA by Jane Austen Penguin Classics (reissue 2003)
- Jane Austen’s Letters Collected and edited by Deirdre Le Faye (third edition)
Jane Austen's World 
I wish to recommend your Downton Abbey blog to a friend who is starting the Series from Season 1 Episode 1. I can’t seem to figure out how to access all your early blogs, just this last season. Can you help me please. – L.Miller, a devoted fan
On Sat, Apr 9, 2016 at 7:17 AM, Jane Austens World wrote:
> Vic posted: ” Inquiring readers: Here’s another delightful contribution > from the ever creative Tony Grant. If you can’t get enough of his work and > photographs, visit his blog, London Calling, where he shares his images > from his many trips all over Great Britain” >
Lesley, look at my sidebar. Season 1 for Downton Abbey sits at the bottom of all the seasons I covered. It is marked with an image of the Season One DVD. Below it are all the posts related to that season. The links should still be live, although the images have changed.
This was really interesting. You wouldn’t normally read into place names so much, but some of these ideas are quite plausible, given that Jane Austen liked to play with language and Emma itself is centred around a puzzle.
It was helpful to learn more about the area that Emma is based around, and since these places aren’t far from where I live, Tony you have inspired me to see more of Surrey!!
Oh and I have to add, I agree about the name Knightley – he is a knight – ly character, strong, principled and noble. The perfect name for the hero in the story.
Tony, I enjoyed reading this and looking at your photos. I think it can be a dangerous game to say that Austen based Highbury on one town in particular–as you mention it is a mix, and it is wise for her as an author to have constructed her imaginary place in such a way. She can make it just as she likes, to suit her story, without busybodies complaining, “that’s not where the vicarage is.” Also no one who lives in the “real” town can feel slighted or that a particular character is directed at them–though from the “Opinions” Austen collected about Emma, it appears that some people did anyway.
Your comments about Mr. Knightley’s name, I think, are spot on. In Jane Austen and the Navy, Brian Southam wrote that Mr. Knightley is very much a John Bull type of character, and meant to convey all that is best about the native English. Frank Churchill is kind of a weaker character who hearkens more to the French. Note his name, for instance: Frank, not Francis. The word “Frank” can also be a descriptor of the French. And his last name, Church-ill, would certainly have conveyed to a religious reader that his morals might be lacking. You’ve already pointed out the timing of the writing of the novel, at the end of the war against France, in which Britain prevailed. John Bull beat out the Franks as well within the pages of the novel. ;-)
I had no idea Box Hill was a real place! I so want to visit it now!! <3 All the pictures are beautiful too!
Thank you all for your kind comments. Interestingly, Vic added the map to show the relationship between Kingston and Richmond. If you look at the map and find New Malden, I live just to east of New Malden town centre and just south of Wimbledon town centre. (A footnote!!!)
Great article. Loved seeing and reading about the places in Emma. It adds a new dimension to the reading of the novel when I can picture the scenes that may have inspired Austen. One small note…. I’m pretty sure it is Isabella, not Emma, who says the line about Mr. Weston writing a note to them that there was no scarlet fever in Cobham. :-) Since Isabella is obsessed with her children’s health, it makes sense that she would think very highly of someone who would do that. :-)
Anther great article. I did enjoy the photos of places I used to know when I lived in England all those decades ago.
I enjoyed reading about the locations featured in “Emma” I have to admit that Emma is my favorite person in the Jane books. She is so much fun to know and gossip with. I, also,,speculated about the connection between Mr. Knightly’s name and his royal demeanor. Thank you for this article and beautiful pictures. I received my poster today and i was absolutely stunned. It will be framed and hung in my reading nook. Thank you. .
As always, exceptional research and wonderful photos, Tony. Thank you for some really great background on Emma and Jane. Keep sharing with us – I love reading your articles as much as I love Vic’s!! (Emma is still my favorite of Jane’s books and the movie version with Romola Garai and Jonny Lee Miller never gets old.)
Thank you Robban,Florence and Lynne.
Lynnelle, of course you are right. The message was to Mrs John Knightley from Mr Weston about Cobham. Children are not often alluded to in Jane Austens novels very often, she mostly focuses on teenage girls reaching marriageable age and the slightly elder lady still in the market for a husband.And of course Emma is a barometer of the 18th century marriage market hilariously misread by Emma.
This incident does tell us a lot about Mr Weston’s character and feelings. He has given up his son after his first wife’s death. He must have felt that accutely.More so than what people thought of him as an,” easy, cheerful tempered man,” that did not feel badly about his son. Scarlet fever was a killer, I am sure, especially of young children so he must have felt desperate that Isabella’s, the Knightley’s children should not be taken away from them. Perhaps the psychological motivation of characters should be another article? Ha! Ha!,
Many thanks for this erudite essay which I, like Tony a local, will study with pleasure. I noticed one small slip: ‘Kingston upon Thames, further down river from Richmond ’ should be ‘UP river’.
The Thames flows west to east but in a series of meanders so that at Richmond it is flowing northwest. It is tidal but held up by a half-lock near Isleworth so that much of the time it hardly seems to be flowing at all, which may confuse a visitor until the tide rises, often flooding the riverside and carrying away carelessly parked cars.
Thank you Chris.
Thank you for the pictures! It is my dream to travel to England and see the places Jane Austen uses as the basis for her novels. This gives me insight as to how to go about planning such a trip!
I am sure you will have a great time exploring Jane’s England. Give yourself plenty of time. Thanks for your comment.
This is a very interesting article as it places Highbury as very much a real place and of its time. The photographs are also very helpful.
One thing that I think it raises is that the characters in the novels of Jane Austen do not seem to be based on real people,whereas the locations in the novels are often based closely on real locations. One wonders why the author wanted to be so accurate in her descriptions of real locations, this is unusual for a novelist. Perhaps she felt it easier to keep in her head the idea of a real place, so that she could then use it as a fixed point around which to weave the imagination of the story.
It is beyond doubt that Highbury is based on Leatherhead. As I have lived in Surrey for 50 years and know the area well, I recognise the area in the novel well. James Edward Austen-Leigh, Jane Austen’s nephew, wrote to Lord Arthur Russell that Jane Austen had told him Highbury was based on Leatherhead. A native of Leatherhead, Mary Trebeck, wrote to the Times Literary Supplement in 1918 describing the correspondences between the novel and the town of Leatherhead. She showed the following correspondences between the novel and real life: The Crown was The Swan, Ford’s shop was Wheatons, the Bateses lived above a shop called Palmers, Vicarage Lane exists on the same site in the book and in real life and has the same name, and in the book as in reality, it led to a ford over the river, Hartfield was Thorncroft Manor, Randalls was Randalls Park. Randalls Park at the time, as in the book, was a relatively small house and estate. In real life as in the book the trip from Hartfield to Randalls is half a mile long and it first fords the river and then passes through “the common field”. Donwell Abbey was situated where Mickleham Priory now stands and in the book the time Jane Fairfax takes to walk from there to the centre of Highbury is the same time it takes in real life.
As is noted above Highbury “is 16 miles from London, 9 miles from Richmond and 7 miles from Box Hill. How more detailed could you be? These coordinates actually give you a spot on the Leatherhead to Kingston Road at a crossroads called, Malden Rushett.” Looking at the map now, one might be tempted to come to this conclusion. There is confusion as people think that Leatherhead is 3 miles from Box Hill. However, in the novels, eg Pride and Prejudice, distances are calculated not as the crow flies but by the distance along the road. At the time of Jane Austen, the above coordinates correspond exactly with Leatherhead. This is because, as Mary Trebeck pointed out in 1918, in the novel the characters travel from Leatherhead/Highbury to Box Hill via the village of Headley. Via this route, as in the novel, rather than going uphill, you travel along a ridge and the view from Box Hill suddenly emerges. This distance from Leatherhead is exactly 7 miles and not 3 miles and therefore corresponds with the distance from Highbury in the novel.
The name Highbury alludes to the town being high up and “airy”, famous for its healthy air, which is exactly how the town of Leatherhead is described in the sales particulars of Thorncroft Manor in 1814. Hartfield, like Thorncroft Manor, is famous for its lawns and shrubberies and is so close to the town it is really part of it. The sales particulars of Thorncroft Manor specifically mention its lawns and shrubberies and its coach houses. Thorncroft Manor at the time the novel was written belonged to Juliana Boulton, the sister of the Lady Sophia Burrell, who was a close friend of Jane Austen’s cousin.
The incident where Mr Knightly rides past the Bates’s lodgings can be traced now. He would be riding from his home northwards up Church Street and then at the crossroads where the inn and the Bates’s lodgings were (where the Travelodge now is) he would have turned right up High Street which is the way to Kingston.
In the novel, Highbury corresponds to Leatherhead in every particular. The only difference is the location of Downwell Abbey and the Abbey Mill Farm. In real life the farm, now called Norbury Park Farm, is next to Mickleham Priory. The author, however, places the Abbey Mill Farm at the present site of Mickleham Priory while she places Donwell Abbey at an imaginary spot half a mile west of it. I surmise that the reason she does this is so that she can describe the ideal view of England referred to in the article, which is a real view to be seen from this spot. This view is still the same now. We know that this is the view referred to in the novel, as it is the only view in the area with a farm fronted by meadows with the curve of the river behind it and with a steep wooded bank behind the river.
Thank you Nicholas. One of the things I have against Leatherhead is it is and was a much larger town than Highbury and Hartfield appear to be.Emma is about riddles, a play on words and the novel works by being a puzzle. She mixes real and imagineary places to add to this puzzle. I am not sure she really wanted Highbury and Hartfield to be recognised as a real place.It is univerasal. Jane describes a very small close community of a few families and acquaintances that would fit with Cobham or other villages more readily. However, I am sure you are right about the countryside and parts of the River Mole she describes.Again the mix of real and invented.This discussion reminds me about The Old Curiosity Shop situated within the area of the present day LSE. Was it really the Old Curiosity Shop? There are letters exchanged between .Dickens and his best friend Forster about the location. Dickens says it was demolished.Ha! Ha!
Emma was actually my least favourite Austen novel but reading your intriguing research on its actual locations makes me want to read the book again and pay more attention to them. Nice blog!
so beautiful