Joana Starnes

Few things are better than spending the day with friends – and one of them is spending a day with like-minded friends in a special place we all love.

A couple of days ago I had the great pleasure of finally meeting Christina Boyd face-to-face and visiting Jane’s house together, along with Mira Magdo from Obsessed with Mr Darcy.

It was a delight to work with Christina on The Darcy Monologues and to chat with her online, but just as I imagined, meeting her face-to-face was even better.

What a fun day of chats and giggles as we made lavender bags, explored the Jane Austen House Museum and the exquisite Great House!

It’s always wonderful to walk down the paths Jane had walked and take in the magic of the place she used to call home. Jane’s house was as charming as ever. Perhaps even more so, because now two of the rooms in the house have been restored to their Regency glory. Thanks to some very fortunate finds it was possible to recreate a look that Jane Austen would have recognised. Fragments of the original wallpaper were discovered behind wood-panels and on the former site of a built-in bookcase. They were analysed and found to match patterns available in 1809. Then they were painstakingly and lovingly reproduced as faithfully as possible, using the original method of block-printing – so that now we have the joy of seeing those two rooms just as they were when Jane lived there.

I was particularly surprised by the soft colours. I once read that, for dresses and home décor alike, the colours were much stronger and vibrant (some would even say garish) to compensate for the low lighting levels. What would look garish in a modern spotlight was soft and pleasing to the eye by candlelight.

The newly refurbished rooms in Jane’s house pose no such conundrums, and to say that they are pleasing to the eye is an understatement. I haven’t had the privilege of seeing them by candlelight, but it’s an incredible feeling to think that as she sat to play the piano or write a letter, this is the pattern her eyes had drifted to:

Equally amazing it is to think that some of the many scraps of cloth incorporated in her famous quilt might have come from dresses she had worn – or at least from dresses that were fashionable at the time when her busy pen gave us Elizabeth and Mr Darcy.

If there’s a more beautiful and engaging love story, I haven’t found it yet – and chances are I never will, because I’m far too engrossed by this one. Time for another pilgrimage, I think. Yes, definitely! And I’ll keep you posted. Thanks for visiting Chawton with me – Christina and Mira for real, and everyone who came to read this and join us on the virtual trip.