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Archive for the ‘Persuasion’ Category

Renting Kellynch Hall

Posted in jane austen, Money in Regency, Persuasion, Regency Life, Regency style, Regency World, Renting Kellynch Hall, tagged , , on October 26, 2007| 8 Comments »

Helpful Readers,

Yesterday I received some extremely interesting questions from a reader about renting Kellynch Hall. Unfortunately, they came at a time when I am entertaining house guests. I cannot apply myself to the task until later this week, except to provide this link to Jane Austen’s Economics. Can anyone answer part or all of the questions below? Your comments are welcome and I thank you ahead of time for helping out.


If you cannot answer the questions but are interested in the topic, here are some links to online articles from the Jane Austen Society of Australia: One is about Kellynch Hall, which contains all the references to it in Persuasion, and one written by Jon Spence about Stoneleigh Abbey, the great house belonging to Mrs. Austen’s side of the family.

Click here for a fun trivia quiz about the Eliots of Kellynch Hall, and here for the website, Kellynch Hall.

Click here for my article, How Rich is Fitzwilliam Darcy? and some material supporting Brad de Long’s words.

Enough dithering, here are the questions:

  1. How much would it cost to live at Kellynch annually? Simply, that is, without sorbet and six liveried footmen–just the way Lady Eliot would have kept the place running in the black.
  2. Just how much rent did Admiral and Mrs. Croft pay for a furnished house of that consequence?
  3. Would the rent pay for building maintenance and upkeep or just the cost of running the house and keeping the servants?
  4. Would Sir Walter’s debts be whittled down by renting Kellynch? Is he making a small profit on the rental? Or just not losing money, treading water so to speak?
  5. It seems that the Crofts took over the charity obligations since Anne “was so sure” of the poor being relieved when the Eliots left for Bath. Was that usual for renters? Why did that duty not fall on the rector or the parish?

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Jane Austen’s Lyme Regis

Posted in jane austen, Jane Austen Novels, Jane Austen's World, Persuasion, Regency Period, Regency World, tagged , , on January 13, 2007| 6 Comments »


“[Jane] delighted in the scenery around Charmouth with ‘its sweet retired bay backed by dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among the sands make it the happiest spot for watching the flow of the tide, for sitting in unwearied contemplation.'” A Portrait of Jane Austen, David Cecil, p. 104

“In the Autumn of 1804 Miss Jane Austen, together with her father and mother, spent some weeks at Lyme Regis. As they drove to that place from Bath, they would probably go by way of Shepton Mallet, Somerton and Crewkerne, and, leaving Axminster a couple of miles to their right, would join the Lyme Road where an old inn called “The Hunter’s Lodge” stands. Then passing through the “cheerful village of Uplyme” they would descend the long hill towards Lyme itself, and pass down its quaint main street, which seems to be “almost hurrying into the water” as Miss Austen says. Half way down the street the chaise would turn into a lane, which, running westward, finally makes a precipitous descent to the harbour. At the end of the little parade or “walk” nearest to the harbour on a grassy hillside there stands a long, rambling, white cottage, [Page 134] and it is in this cottage that tradition declares the Austens to have stayed.” From:  Jane Austen: Her Home and Her Friends


Lyme Regis Assembly Ball Room a century after Jane Austen’s time.

The Cobb as described in Persuasion:

After securing accommodations and ordering a dinner at one of the inns, the next thing to be done was unquestionably to walk directly down to the sea. They were come too late in the year for any amusement or variety, which Lyme as a public place might offer; the rooms were shut up, the lodgers almost all gone, scarcely any family but of the residents left; and as there is nothing to admire in the buildings themselves, the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street almost hurrying into the water; the walk to the Cobb skirting round the pleasant little bay, which in the season is animated with bathing machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the stranger’s eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme to make him wish to know it better.

Lyme Regis Today:

Photos of Lyme Regis

Lyme Regis, Dorset


 

 

House in which Jane Austen lodged (see drawing.)

And a Lyme Regis holiday cottage today. (Below)

Also find: Jane Austen in Lyme Regis

Jane Austen and Eleanor Coade

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