It is a corner of England synonymous with one of our greatest authors. And now a petition has been launched to protect Jane Austen’s ‘literary landscape’ amid the threat of hundreds of new homes.
Literary enthusiasts living in the market town where the 18th century author grew up are attempting to ‘secure’ the Pride and Prejudice author’s ‘amazing legacy’ by urging Historic England to grant formal protection to the area.
Organisers said that Austen sought inspiration for her characters from her ‘daily interactions’ in Alton, Hampshire, near the village of Chawton where Austen spent the last eight years of her life, writing or revising her six great novels.
And at the start of a year which marks the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, they are worried that under the Labour government’s drive for new housing, the countryside which she is so strongly associated with could be under threat.
A petition by a local Liberal Democrat councillor to secure the landscape ‘for the nation’ – in the same way that Thomas Hardy country is protected in Dorset – has already garnered more than 900 signatures just days after it was published.
The petition states that Alton is where Austen ‘walked, shopped, socialised and made notes for developing the characters who featured in her novels’.
The novelist, who died at the age of 41 after a year of illness, also regularly walked 1.3m from Chawton, where she shared a cottage with sister Cassandra, their mother and a close friend of the author, to Alton to catch coaches to London, or to visit relatives.
A Jane Austen walking trail links the two locations, highlighting buildings associated with the author.
English author Jane Austen
The potential development area near Alton, the proposed site is marked inside a red dotted line
Alton hosts its annual Regency Week in June, with talks, guided walks, workshops and a Regency Ball. The town has also created a Regency-style garden in memory of the novelist.
The Government has announced proposals to almost double the number of homes East Hampshire must build by 2040, from 574 to 1,074 every year to 2040.
Ginny Boxall, the Lib Dem district councillor who set up the petition, said she was told at a council briefing that Alton would be expected to take 3,000 of those homes.
She said: ‘I have two grown-up children still at home who are locked out of the housing market – single people are looking at deposits approaching £100,000 to get on the ladder, so I understand the issue.
‘But we are facing an onslaught of new housing here and time is of the essence.
‘We have already lost bits of greenery along the route Austen would have walked from Chawton to Alton but we don’t want to lose it all, or the vistas around the town which she would’ve enjoyed.
‘If we don’t take action now, we will lose the literary landscape of Jane Austen.’
Referring to the Deputy Prime Minister, who last month set out a blueprint for fast-track planning decisions, Ms Boxall, a former Mayor of Alton ,added: ‘I don’t know if Angela Rayner cares about history or our literary giants, but some of us do. Austen is such a treasure and valued all around the world, and local people care about the link to her.’
Lib Dem district councillor Ginny Boxall, set up the petition to protect Jane Austen’s ‘literary landscape’
Jane Austen (1775-1817) is remembered for her six great novels Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Persuasion, and Northanger Abbey
Ms Boxall said the town has been left with an ‘amazing legacy’ from the author.
‘We’ve been left on the back foot really in Alton in being proactive and making the best possible sort of protection and thinking about a literary heritage for Jane Austen,’ she said.
‘As a councillor, I’m incredibly aware of the dilemma that we find, because the government have doubled our quota for new housing – and so we’re looking at 3,000 homes needing to come to Alton.
‘And it occurred to me that we have no protection in place, at all.’
The former Mayor said that landscape in Dorset, England has been protected in several ways to preserve the literary legacy of Thomas Hardy.
‘We haven’t got that in Alton and yet Jane Austen has to be one of the literary giants out there,’ she continued.
‘We need to see if the government will actually help us to gain some more recognition for the incredible connection that Jane Austen had with Alton.
‘I just don’t think we’ve been very good in Alton for claiming her as our own.
Austen fans are campaigning to protect the ‘literary landscape’ where the novelist spent her ‘most productive years
‘All of her daily interactions took place around Alton and we know that she used that to sort of draw some of her characters.’
Members of The Alton Society, Jane Austen Regency week group, and local historians are also involved in the campaign.
And the efforts have attracted attention from across the globe with one American Austen fan writing a letter to Ms Rayner, urging her to protect Alton.
She said the development will be ‘detrimental to the legacy’ of the author, who is one of the country’s ‘most beloved literary figures’.
‘Please consider the international following and admiration of this treasured English writer,’ Andrea Wallace XX said.
‘Readers from all over the world delight in her works and are captivated by the story of her life.
‘Travellers come from far away to experience ‘Jane Austen’s World’.
‘Again, safeguarding history is one of the things that Britain does best, and we heartily admire that.’
Labour has warned councils that some new homes will need to be built on the green belt and that environmental protections will not be allowed to stop development as part of a planning shake-up designed to yield 15m new homes over the parliament. In 2023, just 221,000 were built.
To mark the 250th anniversary of Austen’s birth, there will be a new trail around Winchester, where she died and was laid to rest in the city’s cathedral. The trail will highlight key locations, exhibitions and special anniversary year events.
