Jane Austen&#039;s World

Hamstall Ridware and Austen’s First Cousin, Edward Cooper

Great Bookham and Austen’s Godfather, Rev. Samuel Cooke

St. Swithin’s Walcot (Bath)

St. Paul’s Covent Garden (with links to other churches mentioned in Austen’s writings)

Godmersham

St. Lawrence the Martyr church at Godmersham

The Church at Godmersham: St. Lawrence the Martyr

Posted in Anglican Church, Churches of the Austen family, Jane Austen's family, Jane Austen's religion, Jane Austen's World, tagged Godmersham church on February 26, 2026| 2 Comments »

By Brenda S. Cox

A few days ago we “visited” Godmersham, the estate of Jane Austen’s brother in Kent. Today we’ll continue that visit with the church she attended while she was there. Like so many English churches, it is named after a Christian saint.

St. Lawrence the Martyr: Who Was He?

More than 200 churches in England are named after St. Lawrence. The church at Godmersham, where Jane Austen often visited her brother Edward, is one of them, as is the church at Alton, closest town to Austen’s village of Chawton.

St. Lawrence the Martyr, parish church of Godmersham, which Jane Austen often attended.

The original St. Lawrence’s story is inspiring but rather grisly. He was a deacon in charge of the treasures of the church, and of distributing alms to the poor. When the Roman Emperor Valerian demanded that Christians sacrifice to the Roman gods or else be killed, they refused. Pope Sixtus II and his deacons were beheaded. Lawrence was told to hand over the church’s treasures. Instead of bringing gold, he brought in many of the poor and said they were the church’s treasure.

Valerian supposedly commanded that Lawrence be roasted on a gridiron, and Lawrence even made a joke as he was dying. (Some think he was actually beheaded and the gridiron is a transcription error; scroll down at this link.) He became the patron saint of comedians and poor people as well as those who work with open fires, such as bakers, and those who fear fires, such as librarians.

And, guess what else? He’s apparently the patron saint of barbecues. On August 10, St. Lawrence’s Day in the church calendar, many churches like this one celebrate by having a community-wide barbecue. Okay, that’s the grisly part. Moving on . . .

Godmersham Church and Jane Austen’s Family

Godmersham church plaque mentioning Jane Austen

Memorial to Jane Austen’s brother, Edward Austen Knight “of Godmersham Park in this parish, and of Chawton House in the country of Southampton,” and his wife Elizabeth. It tells about Edward’s name change and inheritance. Edward is described, “Living peaceably in his habitation, he was honored in his generation, a merciful man whose righteousness shall not be forgotten.” (This combines verses from Ecclesiasticus 44:6, 7, 10; Ecclesiasticus is a book of the Apocrypha.)

Memorial in the Godmersham church to the Knights that Edward inherited from, cousins of the Austens. The broken pillar symbolizes the end of the Brodnax family they were descended from. Thomas Brodnax, who built Godmersham Park (which was originally called Ford Place) in 1732, changed his name to May and then to Knight in order to inherit fortunes from distant relatives. His son, also named Thomas Knight, adopted Edward Austen as his heir.

Jane Austen, in a total of ten months staying at Godmersham, must have attended this church at least forty times. More likely eighty times, if they had morning and evening Sunday services as many churches did at the time. So she would have known it well.

In her time, the chuch had a triple-decker pulpit: a high wooden pulpit with a sounding board over it (a wooden structure reflecting the sound forward), from which the vicar would preach. Below that was the vicar’s “prayer desk,” from which he would lead the service, reading prayers and Scriptures. And below that, the “parish clerk’s pew,” from which the church clerk would lead congregational responses. (These are the three “decks” of the pulpit.) (See another example here.)

Across the church from this pulpit were two huge “box pews” for the major families of the parish. These were on top of burial vaults, so Austen would have walked up five steps and through an arched doorway to get to the Knight family’s “pew,” actually a separate room which enabled them to see over everyone’s heads to the top pulpit (See pages 70 and 73–pp. 26 and 29 of the pdf file– of The Parish Church of St Laurence). Quite a different experience than her tiny churches at Steventon and Chawton, where only the squire of the area and his family would have a box pew, on a much smaller scale.

Box Pew at **Steventon Church**, for the squire of the area and his family. The box pews at Godmersham were much larger and more ornate, but were demolished in the 1860s.

While the Godmersham church’s triple decker pulpit is gone, like most of this era, you can still see a triple-decker pulpit at the **John Wesley’s New Room Chapel in Bristol**. The congregation heard preaching from the top level, Scripture reading and prayers from the middle level, and responses led by the parish clerk from the lower table.

Like so many of the Austen-era churches, the Godmersham church was remodeled and expanded in the 1860s. According to the “Souvenir Guide” for the church, at that time “The Georgian furnishings (triple-decker pulpit, parlour pews, western gallery and box pews) were swept away and the entire building restored and refurbished.”

Interior of Godmersham church, much changed from Jane Austen’s time

This chapel under the tower of the Godmersham church was built in the twelfth century. Next to it hang ropes for ringing the bells in the tower. The eagle lectern, a stand for reading the Bible, is typical of English churches.

Church Bell-ringing is a challenging skill to learn. Five bells in the Godmersham church tower were cast in 1687, while a sixth was added in 1999.

Vicars

The Godmersham church had vicars over the centuries. English churches traditionally either have rectors, who received all the tithes of the parish, or vicars, who received only part of the tithes. For a church with a vicar, a nominal rector elsewhere received the main tithes. The only vicar in Austen’s novels is Mr. Elton, who thus received a lower income and needed to marry money. (Tithes are ten percent of the income of the people of the parish; in Austen’s time, it was legally required that this be paid to the parish priest, in either cash or in agricultural produce. The system and these definitions have changed, of course, in modern times.)

The “rector” of the Godmersham church, who received most of the tithe money, was the Dean and Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral, meaning the leaders of the Cathedral: the dean, canons, and prebendaries. Much of the parish income went to them, but some went to the vicar, who performed the daily responsibilities of the church and preached and led services. In Austen’s time, Francis Whitfield was vicar (1778-1811), then Joseph Godfrey Sherer (1811-1823). Jane visited Mrs. Sherer, and said in a letter that she liked Mr. Sherer very much (Sept. 23, 1813). She wrote to her brother Frank (Sept. 25, 1813):

“Mr. Sherer is quite a new Mr. Sherer to me; I heard him for the first time last Sunday, and he gave us an excellent Sermon—a little too eager sometimes in his delivery, but that is to me a better extreme than the want of animation, especially when it evidently comes from the heart, as in him. The Clerk is as much like you [Frank] as ever, I am always glad to see him on that account.”

Here we get a personal view of what Jane Austen liked in sermons: not too much emotion, but enough to show that the preacher is speaking from his heart. It reminds me of a section in her unfinished novel The Watsons, where Emma’s father, a clergyman, commends the sermon of the local minister (Emma’s love interest). Sermons were generally “read”:

“He [Mr. Howard] reads extremely well, with great propriety, and in a very impressive manner, and at the same time without any theatrical grimace or violence. I own I do not like much action in the pulpit; I do not like the studied air and artificial inflexions of voice which your very popular and most admired preachers generally have. A simple delivery is much better calculated to inspire devotion, and shows a much better taste. Mr. Howard read like a scholar and a gentleman.”

Mr. Sherer would have lived in this vicarage (also called a parsonage) close to the church. It is possible that Mr. Collins’s rectory is partially based on this building. It was enlarged in the 19^th century.

Austen continues in the same letter,

“But the Sherers are going away. He has a bad Curate at Westwell, whom he can eject only by residing there himself. He goes nominally for three years, and a Mr. Paget is to have the Curacy of Godmersham—a married man, with a very musical wife, which I hope may make her a desirable acquaintance to Fanny.”

A curate was an assistant or substitute clergyman, generally paid a low salary. Mr. Sherer will hold the office of vicar of Godmersham for life, unless he resigns it. But he can hire a curate to take his place while he resides in another parish for which he is presumably also rector or vicar.

Austen mentions several more visits by the Sherers until on Nov. 7 she says they are actually gone, although Mr. Paget has not yet come. As we often see in Austen’s novels, the clergyman was a central person in a country community.

Baptismal font and organ in the Godmersham church

This memorial on the church’s outside wall, to Susanna Sackree, the nursemaid who raised the Knight children after their mother’s death, was recently unveiled. Photo ©Deborah Barnum, 2025.

The Godmersham Church Today

Like so many English churches today, the Godmersham church is now combined with several other churches in the area, and they take turns hosting services. Our guide estimated that there are about three hundred people in the parish, and only 15 or 20 show up for regular Sunday services. However, larger crowds show up for events such as weddings, funerals, baptisms, and church holy days. The church is blessed to have funding from wealthy former owners of Godmersham Park who left money for the church.

Our guide said he loves the peace and quiet of the church area, and enjoys the changes in the seasons, seeing the snowdrops, the daffodils, and the holly berries. The Pilgrim’s Way from Winchester to Canterbury brings modern-day pilgrims down a path next to the church, where they can enjoy it also.

This lovely, historic country church welcomes visitors, but be sure to make arrangements beforehand. And check on visiting hours for the Heritage Centre.

Brenda S. Cox is the author of Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. She also blogs at Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen.

All photos in this post ©Brenda S. Cox, 2026 (except for Deb Barnum’s photo, which is labeled).

For Further Exploration

Brief History of the church

Services at the church

Detailed history of the Godmersham church (pp. 66-77, “The Church in Jane Austen’s Time” includes sketches of the church interior as Austen knew it. Note the huge box pews on p. 73. Austen would have sat in one of these when she was visiting her Knight relatives.)

The reference to Mr. Sherer’s church at Westwell may refer to this church in Kent.

Other Austen Family Churches

Hamstall Ridware and Austen’s First Cousin, Edward Cooper

Great Bookham and Austen’s Godfather, Rev. Samuel Cooke

St. Swithin’s Walcot (Bath)

St. Paul’s Covent Garden (with links to other churches mentioned in Austen’s writings)

St. Swithin’s, Walcot and other churches in Northanger Abbey

St. Paul’s Covent Garden: The Actors’ Church

Posted in Anglican Church, Architecture, Churches of the Austen family, Jane Austen's World, Religion in Austen's England, tagged Actors' Church, Covent Garden church, Covent Garden theaters on March 17, 2025| 8 Comments »

By Brenda S. Cox

“Edward & I settled that you went to St. Paul’s Covent Garden, on Sunday.”—Jane Austen, letter to Cassandra from Godmersham Park, Oct. 26, 1813

Covent Garden

We’ve been visiting London churches mentioned in Austen’s novels. Now let’s go to one mentioned in her letters. In the fall of 1813, Jane was staying with her brother Edward and his family at Godmersham Park. Cassandra was visiting their brother Henry at 10 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, London. He lived in a flat above his bank. (For locations Henry lived in London, see Jane Austen’s Visits to London.) Covent Garden was known for its fruit and vegetable market, as well as, unfortunately, its prostitutes.

Jane Austen’s London offered two official theatres, at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. Both were in the church parish served by St. Paul’s Covent Garden, and Austen saw plays at both. She was planning to see a play at the Covent Garden theatre when she visited Henry a month earlier:

“Fanny and the two little girls are gone to take places for to-night at Covent Garden; “Clandestine Marriage” and “Midas.” The latter will be a fine show for L. and M.” (Lizzie and Marianne)—Sept. 15, 1813 (Fanny was the eldest daughter of Jane’s brother Edward Austen Knight; her mother had died five years earlier. Lizzie and Marianne were Fanny’s younger sisters. Edward was with them but staying at a nearby hotel.)

Jane and Edward assumed Cassandra would go to church at St. Paul’s Covent Garden, since it was Henry’s parish church. Jane probably attended that church herself when any of her visits to Henrietta Street lasted over a Sunday. She and her family regularly attended church on Sundays, wherever they were.

The old Covent Garden Theatre building is at the center of the modern Royal Opera House.

The Actors’ Church

The Covent Garden area today offers more than twenty theatres. St. Paul’s, called “The Actors’ Church,” hosts concerts and plays in the church and in its walled garden. They have an in-house professional theatre company, Iris Theatre. The church’s summer schedule for this year includes Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, along with several Shakespeare productions and children’s shows. To accommodate such events, the church replaced deteriorating Victorian pews with custom-made movable and stackable pews.

The inside of the church commemorates famous entertainers wherever you look. Hundreds of plaques adorn the walls of the church, the backs of the pews, and the garden benches and walls.

Wall plaques at St. Paul’s Covent Garden. Vivien Leigh’s is in the top right center.

Some plaques are memorials to the church’s leaders and parishioners, as you would see in other English churches. But most remind visitors of famous people such as Vivien Leigh (star of Gone with the Wind), Boris Karloff (who played Frankenstein’s monster), Thomas Arne (who wrote “Rule, Britannia” around 1740), Sir Charles Chaplin (Charlie Chaplin), and others.

A variety of memorials line the walls of St. Paul’s Covent Garden. The central memorial is to John Bellamy Plowman, his son who died in 1811 at age 17, his son’s wife, and six children who died in infancy. The monument above it is from 1879. The grey and white plaque to the left is to Thomas Arne, “musician and parishioner,” 1710-1778, who wrote the anthem “Rule Britannia.” To the right are three twentieth century plaques, honoring playwright Sir Terence Rattigan; author, composer, and actor Sir Noel Coward; and actor Sir Charles Chaplin. A line of more modern brown plaques is below.

Besides actors and actresses, plaques commemorate dancers, singers, directors, theatre managers, patrons, choreographers, drama teachers, playwrights, and even a “critic, journalist, wit.” One woman is listed as “Actress, Producer, Supernova.” The church charges hefty fees to install these plaques (around £3000 for a plaque on the wall). These fees have kept the church solvent.

Memorials on the backs of pews at St. Paul’s Covent Garden

History

The church was designed by Inigo Jones and consecrated to St. Paul in 1638.

Covent Garden churchyard statue of St. Paul seeing a vision on the road to Damascus.

Jones designed it with a great East Door into the main piazza of Covent Garden. However, that would have put the altar at the west end of the church, which went against Christian tradition. At the last moment, the Bishop of London decreed that the altar had to be in the east end of the church, so the East Door doesn’t open. Entry is through the churchyard, from the sides of the building.

Front of St. Paul’s Covent Garden, with the false door in the center.

Various famous people are buried in the churchyard, including the painter JMW Turner and the first victim of the Great Plague of London, who died in 1665. In the 1850s, Parliament stopped all burials in central London churches. At that time, the headstones were removed and the gardens laid out as they are today.

Lovely garden in the churchyard of St. Paul’s Covent Garden

A fire destroyed much of the church in 1795, but it was rebuilt so that today it is much as Austen would have seen it.

Entrance from the churchyard of St. Paul’s Covent Garden.

Rectors

When Jane Austen was there, Edward Embry was the rector, from 1810-1817. She might have heard him preach, but she does not mention him in her letters. His portrait is in the National Gallery.

The rector who kindly showed us around when we visited was Rev. Simon Grigg, who has been rector since 2006. His bio says “When not in church you will usually find him in a bar, a theatre or the gym.” The assistant rector, Rev. Richard Syms, is a professional actor and theatre manager as well as a priest.

The pulpit of St. Paul’s Covent Garden was designed by Grinling Gibbons (1648-1721) or his students.

Worship

The church offers communion services on Sundays and Wednesdays, and brief Morning Prayer services Tuesday through Friday. Their choir sings Choral Evensong once a month. Rev. Grigg told us that attendance on Sundays is about 50 people, plus those who attend online. The church seats 200.

Chancel of St. Paul’s Covent Garden. Note the camera on the right.

They have larger services for Easter and for midnight mass on Christmas Eve. Of course they also host weddings, baptisms, and funerals. According to their website, “St Paul’s is well known because of its memorial services for members of the theatrical and entertainment community, but we also offer them for the local community.”

Welcome sign to St. Paul’s Covent Garden; text is below.

Inclusion

The church seeks to be inclusive, according to their website and this entry sign:

“We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, widowed, straight, gay, confused, well-heeled or down at heel. We especially welcome wailing babies and excited toddlers.

We welcome you whether you can sing like Pavarotti or just growl quietly to yourself. You’re welcome here if you’re ‘just browsing’, just woken up or just got out of prison. We don’t care if you’re more Christian than the Archbishop of Canterbury or haven’t been to church since Christmas ten years ago.

We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome keep-fit mums, football dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters.

We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you are having problems, are down in the dumps, or don’t like ‘organized religion’.

We offer a welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell or are here because granny is visiting and wanted to come to church.

We welcome those who are inked, pierced, both or neither. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down their throats as kids, or got lost in Covent Garden and wound up here by mistake.

We welcome pilgrims, tourists, seekers, doubters, . . . and you!”

No doubt Jane Austen and her family would have felt welcome in the church, especially with their love of the theatre.

All photos in this post ©Brenda S. Cox, 2025

More Information about St. Paul’s Covent Garden

Physical dedications

Self-Guided Tour, explaining parts of the church and giving prayers

Visitor Information and schedule of events

History of the church

Churches Mentioned by Name in Jane Austen’s Novels

Garrison Chapel

St. George’s, Hanover Square

London Churches in Austen’s Novels

Austen Family Churches

Hamstall Ridware and Austen’s First Cousin, Edward Cooper

Great Bookham and Austen’s Godfather, Rev. Samuel Cooke

Brenda S. Cox is the author of Fashionable Goodness: Christianity in Jane Austen’s England. She also blogs at Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen.

St. Swithin’s, Walcot and other churches in Northanger Abbey

St George’s, Hanover Square and Mansfield Park

Posted in Anglican Church, Churches of the Austen family, Georgian London, Jane Austen's religion, Jane Austen's World, Mansfield Park, Regency London, Sense and Sensibility, tagged Churches in Austen's Novels, London Churches, Mary Crawford, Mayfair, Wealth and poverty in Jane Austen's London on February 24, 2025| 2 Comments »

By Brenda S. Cox

“. . . perhaps you would not mind passing through London, and seeing the inside of St. George’s, Hanover Square. Only keep your cousin Edmund from me at such a time: I should not like to be tempted.”—Mary Crawford, Mansfield Park, chapter 43

Mansfield Park includes much more discussion of the church than any other Austen novel. Not surprisingly, it also names more real churches than the other novels do.

In an earlier post we explored the Garrison Chapel, where Fanny Price and her family worship in Portsmouth. Henry Crawford attends with them on his visit. Perhaps this symbolizes his attempts to reform himself and become worthy of Fanny; attempts that ultimately fail.

Remains of the Garrison Chapel in Portsmouth where the Prices and Henry Crawford worshiped.

Henry’s sister Mary names another real church in a letter to Fanny. She wants Fanny to let her and Henry take Fanny back to Mansfield from Portsmouth, where Fanny has been staying with her family. Fanny is unhappy and unhealthy, but will not commit the impropriety of going back to Mansfield Park before her uncle sends for her. Mary wants to take Fanny to see Henry’s estate and then pass through London on the way to Mansfield.

She suggests visiting St. George’s, Hanover Square. This was a popular church for weddings among the upper classes of London. Mary hopes Fanny will marry Henry there. At the same time, Mary says it might tempt her to marry Edmund. She doesn’t want to marry a clergyman, or a second son who will not inherit an estate, but she is attracted to Edmund.

St. George’s Hanover Square exterior. According to the church website, “The classical front with six great Corinthian columns supporting a pediment represented a new trend in English Church design.”

St. George’s, Hanover Square Today

During a recent visit to London, I had the privilege of worshiping at St. George’s, Hanover Square on a Sunday morning. The service was a Sung Eucharist, a Communion service in traditional language, with beautiful singing from the choir and impressive organ music. During the service, the congregation renewed their baptismal vows.

St. George’s Hanover Square interior. The painting of the Last Supper over the altar, and the surrounding carvings, were installed in 1724. The seven silver hanging lights in the church represent the seven lamps of fire burning before God’s throne, according to the book of Revelation in the Bible.

The church also offers brief midday services from the Book of Common Prayer on weekdays and several other Communion services during the week. Weekday “Morning Calm” services are held during termtime, as “a short period of reflection, contemplation, and relaxation before the challenges of the day begin.”

Nowadays the area around Hanover Square is mostly offices and businesses. I was told that most people in the current congregation live farther away, since few people live close to the church now.

The signboard for St. George’s Hanover Square lists services, extensive opening hours, and rules such as no drugs in the church and no sleeping on pews.

Wealthy Mayfair

Hanover Square is in Mayfair. In Austen’s England, many wealthy people had large houses in Mayfair or surrounding areas. In Sense and Sensibility, the Palmers live in Hanover Square, while the Middletons, Mrs. Ferrars, and Willoughby live nearby in Mayfair. Mrs. Jennings and John and Fanny Dashwood live in Marylebone, an area just north of Mayfair. It developed when Mayfair could no longer accommodate all those who wanted fashionable, elegant housing. (Source: The Annotated Sense and Sensibility, David Shapard.)

St. George’s is the parish church of Mayfair, where the wealthy worshiped. In 1711, Parliament had passed an Act for the building of fifty new churches in and around London. The wealthy of Mayfair petitioned for a church, which was completed in 1725. The patron saint of the church is St. George, a Christian martyr of the third century who is also the patron saint of England.

Rectors of St. George’s Hanover Square during Austen’s time and thereafter. Some held other influential church positions as well.

The parish was large, with a vestry of 101 vestrymen. These included 7 dukes, 14 earls, 7 barons, and 26 other titled people. A vestry, led by the church’s rector and churchwardens, decides matters relating to the church and the secular parish. (Mr. Knightley, Mr. Weston, Mr. Cole, and Mr. Cox are apparently on the vestry for their parish, as they are “busy over parish business” in Emma.) The St. George’s, Hanover Square vestry dealt with local issues including street lighting, refuse disposal, nightwatchmen, and a workhouse for the poor.

St. George’s Hanover Square eagle lectern. Many churches of Austen’s time had lecterns similar to this, where the Bible was read to the congregation. (The eagle symbolized the Word of God because supposedly it could fly directly into the sun without closing its eyes, so it was like the Bible, leading people to God with eyes open. Eagles’ wings also symbolized carrying the gospel to the ends of the earth.)

Rich and Poor

While the wealthy owned mansions in the area, most spent only the winter in London, passing the rest of the year on their country estates. The back alleys behind the mansions teemed with poverty and misery year-round. In the early 1800s, the Evangelical movement began to awaken the church to the needs of the poor. St. George’s established a parish school for poor children in 1804, supported by public subscriptions. Later in the century, the church initiated and supported extensive projects to help the working classes of the area.

But the wealthy ran the church in Austen’s time. Around the gallery (balcony) are listed the churchwardens, year by year. Anglican churches generally have two elected churchwardens, responsible for financial accounts, movable property of the church, keeping order, and other administrative responsibilities. The churchwardens listed on St. George’s galleries for the 1700s and early 1800s sound impressive: Viscounts, Earls, Lords, Sirs, Honorables, and Esquires.

St. George’s Hanover Square balcony listing early churchwardens. Many were titled men.

Music

The composer George Friderick Handel lived about a four minute walk from the church. He helped choose the organ and organist for the new church. He had a pew there and worshiped at St. George’s until he died. He wrote the Messiah in his house nearby on Brook Street, which is now a museum.

St. George’s Hanover Square organ pipes; a new organ was installed in 1972. The original organ had 1514 pipes and three manuals (keyboards for the hands). It cost £500 in 1725.

Weddings

Since it was at the heart of the wealthy district, St. George’s, Hanover Square was the popular place for weddings of the wealthy and influential. In 1816, the church hosted 1,063 weddings! Famous people including Percy Bysshe Shelley, Benjamin Disraeli, George Eliot (Mary Lewes), and Theodore Roosevelt were married at St. George’s. Mary Crawford was likely staying near there with her wealthy London friends, and she may have attended church there. So it was the first place she thought of for her own and her brother’s weddings. It is still a popular venue for weddings, though not as much so as in Austen’s time.

On Thursday, we’ll look at the other two real churches mentioned in Mansfield Park, the two most famous churches in England. Do you know which ones they are? We’ll also consider which London church Lydia and Wickham married in!

Churches mentioned by name in Jane Austen’s novels and letters

Garrison Chapel

London Churches in Austen’s Novels

St. George’s, Hanover Square

St. Paul’s, Covent Garden: Actors’ Church

Austen Family Churches

Hamstall Ridware and Austen’s First Cousin, Edward Cooper

Great Bookham and Austen’s Godfather, Rev. Samuel Cooke

St. Swithin’s, Walcot and other churches in Northanger Abbey

Walcot Church in Northanger Abbey and in Austen’s Family

Posted in Churches of the Austen family, Jane Austen in Bath, Jane Austen's World, Religion in Austen's England, tagged Bath, Bath Abbey, Northanger Abbey churches, Salisbury Cathedral, St. Swithin's Church, Walcot on January 27, 2025| 4 Comments »

by Brenda S. Cox

“Hot! He [John Thorpe’s horse] had not turned a hair till we came to Walcot Church; but look at his forehand; look at his loins; only see how he moves; that horse cannot go less than ten miles an hour: tie his legs and he will get on.”–John Thorpe, Northanger Abbey, chapter 7

“Walcot Church” in Bath is one of several real churches that Jane Austen mentions in her novels. This particular church is closely connected to Jane Austen’s family. Austen made several visits to Bath and lived there for some years, so she knew Bath and its churches and chapels well.

As we’re celebrating Jane Austen’s life this year, we remember that church was an important part of her life. We’ve already looked at some of the churches she attended: St. Nicholas’ at Steventon, where she went as a child, St. Nicholas’ at Chawton, which she attended during the years she was writing most of her novels, and others (see links at the end of those posts).

St. Swithin’s Walcot in Bath. Completed in 1790, externally it is still much as it was when Jane Austen saw it.

“Walcot Church”

Walcot Church is the parish church of Walcot, right on the London Road coming into Bath. So it would have marked Thorpe’s arrival at the town. Wealthy and influential people worshipped there during the nineteenth century, so this may also be an indirect boast, as Thorpe tries to connect himself with a prestigious place.

A parish church can be called by the name of the parish or by the name of its patron saint. The patron saint of this church is St. Swithin, so the church is St. Swithin’s Walcot. St. Swithin (also spelled Swithun) was an Anglo-Saxon bishop. The patron saint of Winchester Cathedral, where Jane Austen is buried, is also St. Swithin.

St. Swithin

St. Swithin was associated with various miracles. He came to be connected mostly with the weather. July 15 is St. Swithin’s Day (each saint has a day associated with him or her in the church calendar, usually the day of their death). According to tradition, if it rains on St. Swithun’s day, it will rain for the next forty days, but if it’s clear that day, it will be clear for forty days.

Just before she died, Jane Austen wrote a humorous poem in which St. Swithin threatens Winchester race-goers with rain because they have forgotten him.

Interior of St. Swithin’s Walcot Church today. The stained glass window was first added in 1841 and replaced in 1958 after it was shattered in World War II. It portrays Christ ascending into heaven, surrounded by his disciples. Modern seating on the main floor, rather than pews, allows the church to host a variety of events.

Austen’s Parents’ Wedding

How was the Austen family connected with St. Swithin’s?

Jane’s father, George Austen, studied at Oxford University. He eventually became an assistant chaplain, then a proctor (in charge of student discipline), called “the Handsome Proctor.” At some point he met Cassandra Leigh, niece of the Master of Balliol College at Oxford. Cassandra was the daughter of a clergyman. Her father eventually retired and moved with his family to Bath. After he died, Cassandra Leigh agreed to marry George Austen, and they were married on April 2, 1764, at St. Swithin’s Church. The register states that Cassandra was living in Walcot parish, while George was in the parish of Steventon in Hampshire. Cassandra’s mother came to the wedding, and her brother, James Leigh-Perrot, and her sister, Jane Leigh, signed as witnesses. George was 32 and Cassandra was 24. They were married by license, presumably a common license, not by banns.

By then George Austen had been ordained and gained the living of Steventon, through his relatives. The young couple went straight to Hampshire, where they rented the parsonage at Deane while the Steventon parsonage was prepared. Of course, Jane Austen was born in 1775 in that Steventon parsonage.

Copy of the entry in the marriage register for George and Cassandra Austen, married at St. Swithin’s Walcot on April 26, 1764.

Another famous wedding at St. Swithin’s Walcot: William and Barbara Wilberforce were married there on May 30, 1797, after a six-week whirlwind courtship in Bath. Wilberforce led the fight against the trade in enslaved people and slavery.

George Austen’s Death

In 1801, George Austen left his Steventon parish to his son’s care and moved to Bath with his wife and two daughters, as his wife’s father had done much earlier. In 1805, George Austen died there. He was buried at St. Swithin’s, where you can still see his grave. Jane Austen wrote to her brother Frank, on Jan. 21 and 22, 1805:

“Our dear Father has closed his virtuous & happy life, in a death almost as free from suffering as his Children could have wished. . . . We have lost an Excellent Father. . . .The funeral is to be on Saturday, at Walcot Church. . . . [his body] preserves the sweet, benevolent smile which always distinguished him.”

Jane did not have a suitor waiting in the wings (as her father had been waiting for her mother in a similar situation). She and her mother and sisters had to depend on her brothers for financial help after her father died.

George Austen’s grave at St. Swithin’s Walcot. He died Jan. 21, 1805. The inscription on the gravestone is worn and hard to read. It identifies him as the rector of Steventon and Deane, who died age 75 (meaning, in his 75th year). The newer brown plaque, added in 2000, adds information about his daughter Jane Austen and her residence in Bath.

The author Fanny Burney, Jane Austen’s contemporary, is buried and commemorated nearby.

Did Austen ever attend church at St. Swithin’s? I’ve written another post exploring where she may have gone to church and chapel in Bath. It’s likely that she went to St. Swithin’s when she was visiting her aunt and uncle Leigh-Perrot who lived on the Paragon in Bath. That’s the edge of Walcot parish. The church is a steep walk uphill from their home. Later on, when Jane lived in Bath, she more likely went to chapels closer to her family’s various lodgings.

St. Swithin’s is a busy, thriving church today, with many activities going on. Some events of the Jane Austen Festival last fall took place there. The Charles Simeon Trust, started in 1836 by Evangelical clergyman Charles Simeon, is a patron of St. Swithin’s, as well as of Bath Abbey.

Other Churches Mentioned in Northanger Abbey

Northanger Abbey refers to four other real churches or chapels, more obliquely.

Thorpe says he bought his gig from a “Christchurch man.” He is referring to one of the colleges at Oxford University. Oxford and Cambridge are made up of semiautonomous colleges, and a student’s studies were mostly at his own college. Christ Church is a college at Oxford, and its college chapel is also Christ Church Cathedral for the diocese of Oxford. Thorpe shows a cavalier attitude toward “Christchurch” as well as toward everything else.

(A cathedral is the seat of a bishop, who leads a diocese made up of a number of parishes. A parish is a geographical area which was generally served by one main church, like the parishes that Edward Ferrars and Mr. Collins serve.)

Catherine and Isabella expect to worship together in a chapel in Bath; Austen doesn’t tell us which one. It may have been the Octagon Chapel, which would have been convenient to both of them.

Northanger Abbey also indirectly refers to Bath Abbey. Twice the “church-yard” in the center of Bath comes up. The two young men Catherine and Isabella are following go “towards the church-yard,” and later Catherine trips “lightly through the church-yard” to go make her apologies to the Tilneys. This would be the church-yard of Bath Abbey, in the center of Bath. Roger E. Moore, in Jane Austen and the Reformation, argues that Austen purposely did not name the abbey, which was historically the spiritual center of the town. She may have wanted to critique the fact that Bath in her time was a place of pursuing shallow entertainment rather than deeper spirituality.

Near the end of the novel, Catherine is headed home. She looks out for the “well-known spire” of Salisbury. This is ancient Salisbury Cathedral, which has the tallest cathedral spire in England. Her father’s parish is in Salisbury diocese.

While Jane Austen invents country parishes for her characters, she also connects them with spiritual places in the real world.

Bath Abbey towers above the city of Bath. It is not mentioned by name in *Northanger Abbey*, though its church-yard is mentioned.

Austen includes real-life churches in her novels, such as Salisbury Cathedral, with the highest spire in England. This is Catherine Morland’s landmark as she heads home.
Photo by Diego Delso, CC-BY-SA license.

Real Churches in Austen’s Novels and Letters

Garrison Chapel

St. George’s, Hanover Square

London Churches

St. Paul’s, Covent Garden: Actors’ Church

Austen Family Churches

Hamstall Ridware and Austen’s First Cousin, Edward Cooper

Great Bookham and Austen’s Godfather, Rev. Samuel Cooke