Jane Austen Goes House Hunting
Spring is springing and for many people – including Jane Austen and her mother – that brings thoughts of a new home. In this month’s Musings, architectural historian Dr Moira Rudolf (who will be at the Gainsborough Bath Spa as part of our Jane Austen 250th celebrations next month) takes us house hunting with Jane.
In 1801, when Jane Austen and her mother went house hunting in Bath their overall concern was affordability, so – despite the family’s preferred, more fashionable locations – Jane, writing to Cassandra between 3rd to 5th January, suggested:
‘There are three parts of Bath which we have thought of as likely to have Houses in them, – Westgate Buildings, Charles Street, & some of the short streets leading from Laura Place or Pulteney Street: – Westgate Buildings, tho’ quite in the lower part of the Town are not badly situated themselves; the street is broad and has rather a good appearance. Charles Street however I think is preferable; The Buildings are new, & it’s nearness to Kingsmead Fields would be a pleasant circumstance. (…) The Houses in the Streets near Laura Place I should expect to be above our price. – Gay Street would be too high, except only the lower house on the left hand side as you ascend; towards that my Mother has no disinclination; – it used to be lower rented than any other house in the row, from some inferiority in the apartments. But above all other’s, her wishes are at present fixed on the corner house in Chapel Row, which opens into Prince’s Street. Her knowledge of it however is confined only to the outside (…) – In the meantime she assures you that she will do everything in her power to avoid Trim St altho’ you have not expressed the fearful presentiment of it, which was rather expected.’
Only a fraction of Westgate Buildings survives today. Jane’s friend, Miss Lyford, reported her mother’s comfortable stay there in 1797, but Revd Austen summarily rejected this, as it was very close to the notorious Avon Street slum….
That year, Lady Nelson, writing from New King Street (off Charles Street), commented: ‘This house is £90 a year: Gay Street £160, the higher you go the dearer’. This still holds true today….
The ‘lower house on the left hand side’ Jane mentioned – No.1 Gay Street – was demolished in 1870 when the lane was widened to improve access to the (1830) Royal Victoria Park. It might never have been a peaceful home, as there was an eighteenth-century taxi rank in the lane; the Sedan Chair Rests still survive….
Next, they looked at Seymour Street. In a letter to Cassandra on 5th/6th May 1801, Jane wrote :
‘The first veiw of Bath in fine weather does not answer my expectations; I think I see more distinctly thro’ Rain. – The Sun was got behind everything, and the appearance of the place from the top of Kingsdown all vapour, shadow, smoke & confusion. – I fancy we are to have a House in Seymour St [later buried by Green Park Station, 1868-69] or thereabouts. My Uncle and Aunt both like the situation – . I was glad to hear the former talk of all the Houses in New King Street [off Charles Street] as too small; it was my own idea of them. (…)
Tuesday Night. – When my Uncle [Leigh-Perrot] went to take his second glass of water, I walked with him, & in our morning’s circuit we looked at two Houses in Green Park Buildings, one of which pleased me very well. – We walked all over it except into the Garrets; – the dining-room is of a comfortable size, just as large as you like to fancy it, the 2nd room about 14 ft. square; – The apartment over the Drawing-Room pleased me particularly, because it is divided into two, the smaller one a very nice sized Dressing-Room, which upon occasion might admit a bed. The aspect is South-East. – The only doubt is about the Dampness of the [basement] Offices, of which there were symptoms. –’
The Austens were assured that there was ‘no inconvenience from the river’, but despite that, Jane rejected Seymour Street since the house she viewed was cramped and uninviting.
She was still attracted to Green Park Buildings East and West, which consisted of two straight terraces arranged in a V around the pasture land of Kingsmead Fields where she hoped to walk. Only Green Park Buildings West remains today – the east terrace was bombed during the Bath Blitz in 1942), and subsequently demolished. Faux-Georgian student halls now occupy the site.
The house that especially pleased Jane was 12 Green Park Buildings East, about two-thirds of the way down, where the present-day curved portico at the end of the now terrace stands. Mr Phillips, the Landlord, offered to raise the floor of the damp kitchen, but Jane realised that this would only conceal, rather than solve, the problem. A couple of weeks later, she confessed:
‘Our views on GP Buildings seem all at an end; the observation of the damps still remaining in the offices of an house which has been only vacated a week, with reports of discontented families & putrid fevers, has given the coup de grace. – We have now nothing in view. – When you arrive, we will at least have the pleasure of examining some of these putrefying Houses again; – they are so very desirable in size and situation, that there is some satisfaction in spending ten minutes within them.’
Jane was dismayed, though, at Revd Austen’s unanticipated insistence that they again review New King Street, an idea swiftly dismissed, as one of the two houses seen ‘was quite monstrously little; – the best of the sitting rooms not so large as the little parlour at Steventon, and the second room in every floor about capacious enough to admit a very small single bed.’
So, it was with some relief that the Austens – via an advertisement in the Bath Herald (The Chronicle’s predecessor), on 21st May 1801 – settled on 4 Sydney Place; Jane’s favourite Bath home. The rent, although ‘very low’ – as only three years remained on the lease – stretched the family’s income, but they moved in that September and lived there until 1804, when they were compelled to seek cheaper accommodation.
They turned back to Green Park Buildings. The area was deemed unhealthy at that time, with houses becoming more difficult to let, but they took 3 Green Park Buildings East. This, further from the river, seemed favourable, although Revd Austen, died there on 21st January, 1805 of ‘fever, violent tremulousness, & the greatest degree of Feebleness’, leaving the grieving ladies in parlous financial circumstances, with the urgent need to downsize.
In March 1805, Jane, Cassandra and Mrs Austen took rooms at 25 Gay Street, where – two months later – they were joined by their old friend, Martha Lloyd who continued to live with them. Although No. 25 was in a fashionable neighbourhood, it was a drop in status, being much smaller than Jane’s previous homes and shared with the resident landlady, Mrs Bailey.
The address of their last Bath lodgings in Trim Street, which they took in March 1806, has never been established. This was a move forced by penury, since the Austens had earlier made their objections to this disreputable street clear.
That year, the ladies left the city – ‘with what happy feelings of escape’ – and, after sojourns with relatives in Bristol and Southampton, returned to Hampshire where Jane’s wealthy elder brother, Edward Austen Knight had provided a cottage for them on his Alton estate.
In 1809 they finally moved into Chawton Cottage where Jane embarked on the most productive and successful period of her life…
Dr Moira Rudolf, a Walking Tour Guide, first trained as an Art Historian (University of Manchester, Department of History of Art), with an especial interest in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, before she returned to her first love, Architectural History, in which she gained her doctorate (University of London, Courtauld Institute). She has a lifelong enthusiasm for the architectural/social history of Bath, having fallen in love with the city at the age of five, and – somewhat later – with the life, works and wit of Jane Austen. After all, who could resist Mr Tilney, or even Mr Darcy? Moira will leading a guided countryside walk of the sort Jane Austen enjoyed and giving a fascinating talk as part of our special programmes celebrating Jane Austen’s 250th anniversary in April and October 2025.
