Grab Your Calling Card – it’s time to visit Jane Austen at home!

 

4 Sydney Place

4 Sydney Place

If you are a Jane Austen fan and have visited the city of Bath, then it is highly likely you own a photo similar to this one (in fact, if you were there with friends or family, you are probably standing in the photo as well, beside this very well-known door!)

Now you can do something more than this, something I have always wished to do – you can open the door and cross the threshold! Even more exciting, you can stay at 4 Sydney Place! Yes – you can live in Jane Austen’s Bath home, as it has been beautifully renovated and is now available all year round as a holiday let!

Step Inside...

Step Inside…

The house can be hired either as one (for larger groups of friends or families) or you can just take one of the four lovely apartments instead (one per floor).

Last week, I had the chance to do just that, spending two days and nights in the ground floor garden apartment (yes – you can sit in Jane Austen’s garden too!!)

The pretty walled garden

The pretty walled garden

The house has been brought fully up to date with all the conveniences you would want in a holiday rental: well-equipped kitchens with built-in appliances, up to date and immaculate shower rooms and a large comfortable bed in which to lie back and dream of Mr Darcy! However, this has been a truly sympathetic updating.

The house retains many original features, including the wooden shutters on the windows, ceiling roses and cornices, bell pulls and beautiful etched glass panels in the hallway.

 

The elegant staircase

The elegant staircase

Not only are the furnishings of a high quality, but there are some lovely touches too, such as the old-fashioned tea set in the kitchen cupboard (and yes, there is a teapot, so you can make a proper cup of tea and enjoy it in the garden surrounded by rambling roses!) and beautiful bits and pieces dotted here and there, all enhancing the feeling of staying amidst a real piece of history.

Bath Boutique Stays, the company responsible for the renovation of the property (which has formerly been offices and student flats in recent years), manages the house/apartments, all of which are maintained to a very high standard.

Entrance Hall

Entrance Hall

Fellow Austen Variations author, Jane Odiwe, and I had the opportunity to sit down with Marcus Whittington, one of the Directors of Bath Boutique Stays, last week. He and his wife, Hana – also a Director – consider themselves ‘guardians’ of the house, and they are keen to welcome as many Jane Austen fans as possible to share in this incredibly atmospheric experience.

Engraved Goblets

Engraved Goblets

During our chat, Marcus also shared some tales of discovery from the renovation of 4 Sydney Place! When they first went up into the attic, the roof void was piled high with rubble – two tonnes of it! Why, during some earlier work on the property, these waste materials were taken upstairs rather than out of the front door and disposed of, no one knows, but in the attic there was also a surprising find – an old pot, blackened with age.

Silver Coffee Pot

The Silver Coffee Pot

The pot was meticulously cleaned and turned out to be a beautiful and elegant silver coffee pot. It now has pride of place on the lovely large wooden table in the drawing room of Emma’s Garden Apartment. I like to think it once belonged to the Austen family, don’t you?

The Safe

The Safe

On one of the walls of the bedroom in the same apartment there is a heavy black metal door with a brass knob. What is it, Jane and I had wondered? Was it an old bread oven? Was this room, to the rear of the former parlour, once a kitchen? Marcus had the answer, and another tale to share about it!

The safe was discovered concealed behind a false wall, and no matter what they tried, the door would not yield; even the locksmith who was eventually called in to try and break into it struggled to open it. However, at some extensive cost the door was finally breached, only to reveal one solitary treasure lurking inside. Was it a lost manuscript? Was it a piece of jewellery? A pile of coins? No – it was a monkey nut, perfectly preserved in its shell! As Marcus pointed out, Jane Austen would no doubt love the irony of spending so much money for ‘peanuts’! And who knows – perhaps it was a member of the Austen family who planted it there!

Jane and Cassandra enjoying the Garden!

Jane and Cassandra enjoying the Garden!

So there you have it! If you want to live for a while in Jane Austen’s home, follow this link, where you will find lots of photographs and information on how to book your stay, along with the chance to take up the Jane Austen ‘package’ which includes chilled Prosecco and bespoke cupcakes freshly made for your arrival, entry into the world-renowned Jane Austen Centre, a 90-minute walking tour of Jane Austen’s Bath with a local guide, a traditional Somerset afternoon cream tea in the Regency tea rooms and a locally-made, hand-poured, organic Jane Austen candle to take home!

Grab your chance for a truly Austen-inspired experience!!

(All photos are my own, other than the really good ones which were taken by the lovely Mr Romanus Odiwe!)

26 comments

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  1. Thanks for sharing your holiday sojourn to Bath, Cassandra. The pictures are wonderful too. I’ve never been to England before but if I do go, I plan to spend at least a night in Bath. Maybe if my budget permits, I could rent and stay in one of the apartments. Such happy thoughts to be able to experience what you have been through 🙂

    1. I really hope you do get there! It was such a rewarding experience and they have done a lovely job in blending the original features with modern convenience without detracting at all from the sense of history in the building.

  2. This is so thrilling. I would have loved to actually step over the same threshold Jane Austen stepped over daily!!
    Thank you Cassandra for sharing with us!

    1. It was such a shame you couldn’t get there this time, Monica! We will plan it all better next time and take over the house!!

    • Jane Odiwe on July 3, 2014 at 4:05 am
    • Reply

    It was so wonderful to share that with you, Cassandra! I hope we do it again sometime!!!

    1. It was so much fun having you there! I can’t wait for us to do it again – I miss the garden already!!!

    • Deborah on July 3, 2014 at 5:05 am
    • Reply

    Thank you for sharing Cassandra. When I finally get back to England (it’s only been 36 yes) in 2022 (hopefully) I plan to stay here. You are giving me wonderful ideas on where to go.

  3. Deborah, I am sure you would love it! Let’s hope we all get there at the same time one of these years!

  4. What a wonderful place to stay! Thanks for sharing.

    1. Pleased you enjoyed reading about it, Susan! Here’s hoping for a mass visit before too long!

  5. This is definitely on my list of things I must do! Next year, hopefully. Thanks for the guided tour, Cassandra.

  6. I really hope we all manage to get there together one day, Shannon!

    • Kara Louise on July 3, 2014 at 2:47 pm
    • Reply

    It must have been surreal walking in the very rooms Jane Austen walked through! Thanks for taking us there through your post!

    1. It was a very strange and oddly moving experience! I hope you get the chance to go there yourself soon!

    • Kathy on July 4, 2014 at 12:44 am
    • Reply

    What an interesting place! Thanks for sharing your visit. It’s amazing what manages to survive, 200 years later.

    1. It was a wonderful experience, Kathy! I highly recommend it!

    • junewilliams7 on July 4, 2014 at 2:31 am
    • Reply

    Wow! Do they actually know which room Jane slept in? I wonder if she did any writing in that room….

    Thanks for sharing the stories! I’m glad they fixed up the place, instead of letting it be used for offices and student flats.

    1. I am pretty certain, June, the main drawing room would have been on the first floor (Cassandra’s Apartment) at the front. I suspect the garden apartment where I stayed would have been a parlour for daily use at the front and the new owners were led to believe the back room (now a bedroom) was indeed used as a bedroom back then – but of course we don’t really know for sure, or whose it was!

      I have had a peak into Cassandra’s Apartment and it’s also beautiful. I suspect the main sleeping quarters were on the floor above (Mr Darcy’s Apartment), with the Penthouse being for the servants and storage. I am just guessing here, based on the typical layout of a townhouse!

    • Anji on July 4, 2014 at 7:51 am
    • Reply

    Thanks for sharing your lovely photos and description, Cassandra.

    I bet it was hard to imagine the place as student flats. I was a student once, many years ago, and know what they can be like. Some were fairly grotty to start with and some ended up that way because the occupants had no respect for other people’s property.

    They’ve obviously put in a lot of work to get the whole place into the beautiful condition it’s in now. The silver teapot was a real find and for it to be still on display there is fantastic.

    I’m now trying to think of a name for the penthouse so I can enter the competition!

    1. Yes, do enter!! I think it would be nice to reflect one of the ‘Bath’ novels in a name…

      I must admit, in previous years, it has looked quite run down when I’ve gone to look at it from the outside. It was lovely to see it so well cared for and respected!

    • J Dawn King on July 4, 2014 at 8:10 am
    • Reply

    Just gorgeous, Cassandra. Did it inspire you? Will Darcy and Elizabeth somehow end up in Bath? I look forward to reading it if they do.

    1. LOL! I’ve already done that one, Joy – they both ended up in Bath in A Fair Prospect. 😀

      But yes, it did inspire me, so much so I have dropped the story I was working on and have set off on a whole new one!

        • Barbara on July 5, 2014 at 12:50 pm
        • Reply

        I hope you don’t encounter any tumbleweeds with your new story.

        Patience is a virtue, but it’s getting hard to wait for your next book.

        You are very gifted, so I know it will be worth the wait.

        In the meantime, I’ll continue to reread A Fair Prospect again and again. 🙂

        Thank you.

        1. Awww, thank you, Barbara, that is so sweet of you! I am doing my best to write it quickly and then I’ll probably return to the one I had started!

    • Carole in Canada on July 9, 2014 at 3:46 pm
    • Reply

    I think I better start compiling a list of places I need to visit with my husband in England…when we eventually go. The garden looks amazing and I love the glass windows at the top of the foyer stairs! Can’t wait to read your next inspiring book!

    1. The garden was so pretty, Carole, even though a little overgrown in places! It added (for me) to it’s charm!

      I hope you get that trip soon!

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