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At home with Jane Austen and Lord Byron: famous writers’ houses you can visit in the UK and beyond
It’s often no wonder some of our literary heroes created such beautiful works, given that they lived in such amazing houses. Case in point: Thomas Hardy’s Dorset cottage is the stuff of dreams. Got a taste for the gothic? Take a trip to North Yorkshire and explore Haworth Parsonage, where the Brontë sisters lived and wrote. Even if you’re stranded in the city you don’t have to miss out: Charles Dickens’ Bloomsbury home makes for an atmospheric afternoon that can be topped off with a visit to the courtyard tearoom. So, pack a novel or two for the train, and join us on our book lover’s tour of the UK (and a few further afield)...
1/15Lord Byron: Newstead Abbey
Newstead Abbey has a florid past that arguably exceeds even that of its most famous inhabitant. Formerly an Augustine Priory, it was given by Henry VIII to Sir John Byron of Colwick in 1540, during the Reformation. Over the years, it was transformed into an extravagant Gothic stately home, but its downfall began with the fifth Lord Byron, the so-called “Wicked Lord” who – enraged by his son’s elopement – committed himself to ruination, so the errant son would inherit nothing but debt. In the event, both his son and grandson died before him, so on his death in 1798 the estate fell into the hands of his great-nephew – the future poet, bon-viveur and Romantic icon George Gordon Byron.
The poet lived here periodically over his short life, and declared “Newstead and I stand or fall together”, but the financial ruin perpetrated by his uncle made it impossible to maintain, and it was eventually sold in 1818. Today, as you might expect, the writer’s home contains a sizeable collection of Byron memorabilia, including the elaborate tombstone to his beloved dog Boatswain in the grounds.
2/15The Brontë Sisters: Haworth Parsonage
Stepping across the threshold into the Brontë Parsonage Museum, any Brontë fan instantly will instantly recognise the familiar aura of the sisters’ novels brought to life. The parsonage, in the West Yorkshire village of Haworth, is surrounded by dramatic moorland which inspired the setting of Emily Brontë’s gothic masterpiece Wuthering Heights. The parsonage now houses the world’s largest collection of Brontë furniture, clothes and personal possessions including letters and manuscripts from all three sisters.
National Trust Images/ Andrew Butler3/15Thomas Hardy: Max Gate
Despite gaining international fame for his novels and poetry, what few people know about Thomas Hardy is that he was also a trained architect. Designed by Hardy himself and built by his brother, Max Gate was Hardy’s home from 1885 until his death in 1928. It was in this grand red brick house that Hardy wrote some of his most successful novels, including Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. Hardy would walk in the garden every day past the croquet lawn, Nut Walk and famous pet cemetery, pondering the subject of his next novel, drawing inspiration from his pastoral surroundings.
National Trust Images/ Robert Morris4/15Thomas Hardy: Hardy’s Cottage
This traditional thatch and cob cottage in Hardy’s beloved Wessex is like stepping into a scene from one of his novels: the cottage garden is overflowing with colourful wildflowers and lush greenery. The whitewashed interiors of the cottage speak of an idyllic country existence for Hardy in his youth; later, this cottage also saw the beginning of Hardy’s writing career. Inspired by the scenery through the window of his upstairs bedroom, Hardy penned Under the Greenwood Tree and Far From the Madding Crowd in the homely room.
National Trust Images/ James Dobson5/15Beatrix Potter: Hill Top
Just like Beatrix Potter herself, her seventeenth-century farmhouse is quintessentially English, with its haphazardly planted garden and quaint traditional architecture. The beauty of the English countryside was Potter’s main inspiration, and she was highly respected by the surrounding agricultural community, even going so far as to became the first female President of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders’ Association in 1943. The house has been preserved by the National Trust, and appears as if Potter has just stepped out for a walk, shortly to return to the sweetly decorated rooms within.
National Trust Images/ Chris Lacey6/15Agatha Christie: Greenway
Agatha Christie was unable to resist buying Greenway when it came onto the market – it had been her dream house since childhood, she described it as “the loveliest place in the world”, and shortly after purchasing the house, she established it as a joyful family holiday home. The grand setting undoubtedly inspired her mystery novels; what better place to set a murder mystery than a white Georgian house situated amid the rolling Devon hills? Christie and her family were avid collectors, and many of their fascinating objets are now on display in the house, alongside scapbooks filled with information about the world’s most famous mystery writer.
National Trust Scotland7/15Robert Burns: Burns Cottage
Ask someone to name the most famous Scottish poet, and almost everyone will answer with the name Robert Burns. He gave us “Auld Lang Syne” and every 25 January offers us an excuse to eat haggis and drink whiskey on Burns Night. His birthplace in Alloway (where his long, raucous poem Tam O’Shanter is set) is a small whitewashed cottage where visitors can see where the Burns family lived and worked on the small adjoining farm. The walls of the cottage have been decorated with fragments of his verse and a braw selection of Scots words, such as “hawkie” and “crambo-jingle” (look them up).
Copyright Dylan Thomas Boathouse8/15Dylan Thomas: Boathouse
Dylan Thomas first arrived in Laugharne in Wales in 1934 aged just 19. He was immediately enchanted with the place and moved his family to the area in 1938. It’s easy to see how the location of Thomas’ home inspired his poetry – situated below a cliff near the water’s edge, the view over the bay is awe-inspiring. Thomas famously retired to his purpose-built writing shed to engage in his creative pursuits; during his time at Laugharne, he wrote his famous play Under Milk Wood, as well as much of his most popular poetry.
9/15Wordsworth: Dove Cottage
“And now ’tis mine, perchance for life, dear Vale,
Beloved Grasmere (let the wandering streams
Take up, the cloud-capt hills repeat, the Name)
One of thy lowly Dwellings is my Home.”
Romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote these lines in his poem Home in Grasmere, which was to form the first book of a long philosophical poem he intended to call The Recluse. Grasmere in the Lake District is the location of Dove Cottage – the “dwelling” Wordsworth refers to in his poem – where the poet lived from 1799 until 1807, during which time he wrote some of his greatest poetry including the famous lyric piece I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud. Little has changed in Dove Cottage since Wordsworth’s time. The rooms now host a collection of the poet’s personal belongings recreating the early nineteenth-century family home.
Siobhan Doran Photography10/15Charles Dickens: 48 Doughty Street
The atmospheric Charles Dickens Museum immerses you in the life of Charles Dickens both as a writer and a family man. 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury, London is where Dickens wrote Oliver Twist, The Pickwick Papers and Nicholas Nickleby, achieving international fame and becoming a Victorian national treasure. The house is set up to resemble how Dickens would have known it – filled with Victorian furniture, fascinating artwork and even the desk at which Dickens would write.
Jane Austen’s House Museum11/15Jane Austen: Chawton Cottage
Jane Austen lived in this pretty Hampshire cottage from 1809 until 1817, during which time she completed her most famous novels: Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park. The cottage is now the home of the Jane Austen’s House Museum which has restored the house to reflect the comfortable family home the Austen women would have inhabited.
The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust12/15William Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s birthplace
The market town of Stratford-upon-Avon is synonymous with the world’s most famous playwright, William Shakespeare. The Bard was born and raised in a large timber-clad house on Henley Street which still stands today, and houses a world-class collection of Shakespeare artifacts alongside rooms outfitted to resemble how they would have been during Shakespeare’s childhood. Costumed guides and actors bring the environment to life – performing as both characters from Shakespeare’s works, and from his life.
13/15Virginia Woolf: Monk’s House
The house most closely associated with the Bloomsbury Group is Vanessa Bell’s Charleston in Firle, but just three miles away sits Monk’s House, the country retreat belonging to Bell’s sister Virginia Woolf. It has nothing like the scale or drama of Charleston – it’s a relatively modest 17th-century cottage – but it has serious charm. Woolf and her husband Leonard bought it in 1919, having fallen in love with the “shape and fertility and wildness of the garden”, as she wrote in her diary. This garden would become Leonard’s obsession and a salve for Woolf’s depression – her writing lodge was tucked into the trees and her daily walk from house to desk was a source of peace and inspiration.
14/15Edith Wharton: The Mount, Lenox, Massachusetts, USA
In 1903, Edith Wharton wrote of her latest creative endeavour: “I am amazed at the success of my efforts…This place, every line of which is my own work, far surpasses The House of Mirth.” She was describing The Mount, her Georgian-inspired manor house set in 113 rolling acres in Massachusetts. Infused with French, Italian and English traditions, Wharton’s home was the perfect enunciation of the author’s lifelong passion for design, architecture and landscape gardening.
15/15Mark Twain: The Mark Twain House & Museum, Hartford, Connecticut, USA
A vivid example of the Victorian high Gothic style, the Connecticut abode of the author otherwise known as Samuel Langhorne Clemens has been described as “part-steamboat, part-medieval fortress and part-cuckoo clock”. Built in 1874 to designs by Twain and his wife, it was the writer’s home for 17 years, and it was here that he penned both The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer.
