C H A W T 0 N H 0 US E L I B R. A R Y T.) No. 2 T.) S P R I N G 19 9 6 CENTRE FOR THE STUDY OF EARLY ENGLISH WOMEN'S WRITING he Female Spectator is the newsletter of the Centre for the Study of Early English Women s Writing. The Centre, to be located in Chawton, England, seeks to provide a se!f-contained research area, and to establish a Library, for the study ofthe works ofearly English women writers (1600-1830). The Centre has been establzshed under the ausptces of the Leonard X Bosack and Bette M Kruger T Charitable Foundation,Jounded through the generosity ofSandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack. CHAW T 0 N: H ·I S T 0 RIC A L PER S P _E C T IV E S C HAWTON P AR 'K LANDS_CAPE THE FIRST IN A SERIES OF ARTICLES DEPICTING Irs HisTORY. CoNsERVATION. AND FuruRE by Mrs. Gilly Drummond. D. L. hawton is one of those quintessential English villages that effect of man's activities on any particular place. The character Cinspires poets, painters, and writers because of its antiq­ of landscape, and historic buildings, is acquired through these uity, charm, stability, and the occasional originality of some of historic overlays. In 1903, Christopher Hussey wrote of its inhabitants. The manor houses, or great houses, of these Chawton in Country Lift, "The great charm of the place is its villages best reflect, because they best record, the changing tastes simplicity, originality and antique air." At that time, the House of different generations, as well as the particular, often peculiar, would have gleamed with beeswax. The gardens were wide interests of their owners. Chawton House; the home of the expanses of lawn, flowers, and views, and very close to what Knight family since the sixteenth century and now in Sandy Jane Austen would have seen almost a century before during Lerner's capable hands, is a good example. her visits to her brother, Edward Austen Knight. Two world wars, shifts of fortune and the Great Gale of 1987 have dimmed, Sandy is warmly welcome, for herself and for the contributions but not destroyed, its charm and antique air. The chailenge for she will undoubtedly make to many lives through the Centre Sandy and the Executive Committee is to reclaim those time­ for the Study of Early English Women's Writing and the re­ less qualities. vival of Chawton House. For us Brits, there is again the happy recognition that another enthusiastic, energetic foreigner will The search for the landscape history of Chawton requires the add new dimensions to our lives. skills of archivists, archaeologists, architectural and art histori­ ans, landscape architects and ecologists. All these professionals To care for land sensitively, imaginatively and practically, it is require direction, and the guiding light is the vision of the owner. essential to understand how it has evolved, and the cause and This has to be focused and sharpened, a lively task when there is an unusual owner! The vision becomes the brief for the tions, especially if their state required expensive programs of required Historic Landscape Repai1/Restoration and Manage­ repair. There was genuine delight and relief when a diminu­ ment Plan, to be submitted to the East Hampshire Planning tive knight on a heavy horse came to the rescue, with an Authority. The Plan must demonstrate that considerable incisive mind and a commitment to restore Chawton.House care will be taken of the estate's 275 acres; historic, scenic, and Park. A number of consultants had prepared the obliga­ and conservation values will be considered; and appropriate tory reports, but since the appointments of Sybil Wade as consultants appointed. the landscape consultant for the preparation of the Plan, Cassandra Knight for the implementation of the restoration Sandy has aptly described the process as "labyrinthine," but works, and Chris Currie as the archaeologist responsible for there is good reason. Space is at a premium and England is the historic survey up to 1700, new and important informa­ under constant development pressures. If we want to hand tion has been uncovered regarding the property. Crucial de­ on to future generations the historic huildings and landscapes cisions for present and future land management will be based we still enjoy; it is essential that new development adds rather on this information. than detracts, is appropriate, and where places are very pre­ cious, does not cause irreversible damage. The objectives of the Plan are to restore the historic gardens and landscape where there is good evidence, focusi·ng on the There was a previous application for a hotel and golf course periods leading up to 1840 and particularly on the work of at Chawton, and it was considered the best solution that could Edward Austen Knight, to take account of Sandy's wishes to be found at the time. Many of the great houses, including reinstate the traditional farmed landscape, and to accommo­ Chawton, originally built for prestige, families and enter­ date the Annual G eneral Meeting of the Jane Austen Soci­ taining, have become hotels, conference centers, or institu- ety and the traditional activities associated with the village From the Knight Family CoUtction, courttJy ofRi chard Knight. Thispaintrng by M ellichamp, dated provisionally to 1740, beautifully_ illustrates a period oft ransition in Chawton Park 's history. The carlro; more formal gardens of Cha·wton Park would soon be returmng to a more natural state. It is possible that this painting w as commissioned to record the garden before radical remodeling. 2 The Female Spectator Vol. 1 No.2 Spring 1996 and Great House. Contrary to previously published reports, and handcolored by Chawton's stewards, the two Edward the lady has taken to these as to the manor born. Randalls, father and son, survives in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The survey shows elaborate, seventeenth-century The archaeological survey determined that Chawton is an style gardens and a large walled garden to the south of the ancient settlement. Flint artifacts have been found in the House. This has recently been confirmed by a physical sur­ valley south of the estate, possibly dating to the Neolithic vey of the site where remains of the brick walls were found. period. The Roman presence at Alton may have resulted in It is possible that the Randall $urvey was undertaken prior nearby villa estates, but to date only a few diagnostic ceram­ to a new plan for the gardens. By 1741 Thomas Brodnax ics have been found close to the study area. May Knight, of Godmersham, Kent, inherited Chawton. The medieval period is much more interesting. The House Thomas B. M. Knight (1701-80) shared a common ances­ and estate are mentioned in the Doomsday Survey of 1086 tor with the Austen family, which had been in Kent since when William the Conqueror required a record and ap accu­ Elizabethan times. This Mr. Knight had the happy facility rate assessment of the value of his new acquisitions after the of gaining estates as he added new names; he had been born Battle of Hastings. Chawton was a manor of some impor­ Thomas Brodnax. Both he and his son, another Thomas, tance, with land under the plough and areas of woodlands. were to be benefactors to the Hampshire Austens. He pre­ It was held under the strong authority of the de Port, later sented George Austen with the living of the parish of St. John, families of Norman knights. New research in the Steventon and son Thomas was to adopt Jane Austen's Royal Records, Calendars and Rolls, shows that Chawton brother, Edward. Thomas B. M . Knight was fortunate to became much more important during the reign of Henry live at that perfect time in England when many of the new III, husband of Eleanor of Provence, and his son, Edward I, works of Man were in harmony with the works of Nature, husband of Eleanor of Castile. The Royal Court, which was and taste was much under discussion. He built an elegant itinerant in those days, made 22 recorded visits to Chawton Palladian house at Godmersham in 1732, on the site of an between 1229 and 1276, most probably on the way to and earlier house, beautifully sited to take advantage of the view. from Winchester Castle and London, via Guildford Castle. "Every disposition of the ground was good; and she looked The court needed sufficient supplies of food, and not one, on the whole scene, the river, the trees scattered on its banks but two deer parks, with their park pales of fenced banks and and the winding of the valley with delight," wrote Jane Austen ditches, are known to have existed. St. John had the right to ofPemberley in Pride and Prejudice. So, too, at Godmersham. hunt, a royal favor. A private chapel and two large gardens conjure up a picture of a bustling, medie:'al manor and its By the 1740s, the formal gardens of the Randall Survey and desmene_. their 'preposterous inconvenience' were distinctly out of fash­ ion. Nature itself, in all its variety and irregularity, was the Chawton went into decline with the failures of the male line. inspiration for modern taste and the development of the Two references, first in 1347 and again in 1552 when the English landscape garden. Gentlemen of means, such as manor was sold outright to John Knight, refer to the site of Thomas B. M. Knight, were heavily "in mortar and moving the manor. Presumably it was a ruin. This leaves us with an of earth." He would certainly have looked at his gardens and intriguing mystery.