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| Steventon Rectory |
In Jane Austen's day, the dining-tables of well-to-do rural families were supplied
with fresh food from their farms and estates: grain, meat and vegetables for
the table, and fodder for the horses.
Any surplus farm produce was sold to provide extra income.
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| The Dairy, Cogges Manor Farm. |
At Steventon Rectory, George Austen had a glebe farm (i.e.
belonging to his church living), but it was quite small, so he rented nearby
Cheesedown Farm to supplement the family’s supplies. Mrs Austen kept an
Alderney cow to provide milk and butter.
In later life, when living at Southampton and Chawton, the Austen ladies
grew fruit like apricots and currants in their kitchen garden.
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Butter pats for shaping butter.
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Jane’s brother Edward kept pigs. In a letter to Cassandra
from Steventon (1 December 1798), Jane wrote, ‘My father is glad to hear so
good an account of Edward’s pigs, and desires he may be told…that Lord Bolton
is particularly curious in his pigs,
[and] has had pigstyes of a most elegant construction built for them, and
visits them every morning as soon as he rises’.
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| An elegant pig in an elegant pigsty. |
Rich landowners like
Pride
& Prejudice’s Mr Darcy had hothouses for growing tender fruits like
grapes, nectarines and peaches.
In
season, they also enjoyed game from their estates. The
Knight family sent game
to the Austens from
Godmersham. The killing of game by using dogs or a gun was
restricted by law to members of the landed gentry, providing they owned estates
worth at least £100 p.a., or leased land worth at least £150 p.a. Although the
countryside was plentifully stocked with fish and game, a poor man who helped
himself to a hare or salmon to feed his family faced jail or transportation.
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| Ox Byre, Cogges Manor Farm. |
In the towns, households were supplied by farms and market
gardens; produce was brought in by waggon or canal boat, or on the hoof. In London, hundreds of animals were driven to
Smithfield market each day.
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| Cogges Manor House (17th century). |
