A Visit to Lyme Regis

The Cobb, Lyme Regis. 

'The young people were all wild to see Lyme...the remarkable situation of the town, the principal street almost hurrying into the water, the walk to the Cobb, skirting round the pleasant little bay, which, in the season, is animated with bathing machines and company; the Cobb itself, its old wonders and new improvements, with the very beautiful line of cliffs stretching out to the east of the town, are what the stranger's eye will seek; and a very strange stranger it must be, who does not see charms in the immediate environs of Lyme, to make him wish to know it better', (Persuasion).



In Jane Austen's day, the most respectable houses were in the upper part of town. 'To be a person of consideration in Lyme, it is necessary to toil up hill, and to fix one's abode where it is in danger of being assailed by every wind that blows', (John Feltham, A Guide to all the Watering and Sea-bathing Places for 1813, London, 1813). The houses in the lower part of town were rather 'mean', with 'intricate' streets.

View from the Cobb. 

The Golden Lion and Three Cups were the most respectable inns, and lodgings could be procured there 'on easy terms'. Lyme also boasted a 'small Assembly-Room, Card-Room, and Billiard-table' under one roof, and several bathing-machines. The beach was considered too pebbly for pleasant walking. Feltham was also rather sniffy about Lyme's libraries, which were 'neither copious nor select' and the book collections were 'principally composed of novels'.

The Cobb was Lyme's 'harbour of a most singular construction...where ships ride in perfect safety'. And of course Anne Elliot, Captain Wentworth and the Musgrove girls enjoyed walking along it - except on the day of Louisa Musgrove's accident: 'There was too much wind to make the high part of the new Cobb pleasant for the ladies, and they agreed to get down the steps to the lower, and all were contented to pass quietly and carefully down the steep flight, excepting Louisa; she must be jumped down them by Captain Wentworth'.

But which steps did Louisa fall from? For my money, these horribly gappy ones (left) look like the obvious candidate.















However, there are some very ancient-looking ones (right) near the end of the Cobb which could also be the steps which Jane Austen meant (and which look easier to jump a young lady down from).

Harville Cottage, Lyme Regis. 

There are some nice Regency-era houses on Marine Parade, but they were probably built after Jane Austen's visits in 1803 and 1804.

Lansdown Crescent, Bath

'Could it be Mr Elliot? They knew he was to dine in Lansdown Crescent. It was possible that he might stop in his way home, to ask them how he did'.  This mention of Lansdown Crescent in Persuasion is a testament to Mr Elliot's eligibility, as it was a very fashionable street.
The Historic and Local New Bath Guide (1802) describes the Crescent (at one time known as the Upper Crescent) as a 'grand and stately pile of buildings that seems to crown the city'.
Residents enjoyed picturesque views of the 'town sloping to the Avon; on the west, the valley winding towards Bristol, diversified by the hands of nature and art in the most elegant manner; hills swelling over hills, and vales intersecting vales, adorned with woods, lawns and gardens, display their several charms'.
In April 1805, after attending church, Jane Austen and her mother visited the Irvine family at 19 Lansdown Crescent to take tea with them.One of the Crescent's more famous residents (several years after Jane Austen's death) was William Beckford, the author of Vathek.
Image: The Album of Bath Views, Charles, Reynolds & Co., c.1890.

The Pen Mightier Than The Pelisse?

In Jane Austen’s novel Persuasion, Anne Elliot seemingly mourns the disparity between women’s and men’s education, and women’s lack of representation in history and the arts: ‘Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands’.

But in an age when society believed that a girl’s ultimate ambition should be a wife and mother, an increasing number of women (like Austen herself) took up their pens in the hope of earning some money of their own. In a letter to her brother Frank Austen in 1813, she told him of the success of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility: ‘I have now therefore written myself into £250 –which only makes me long for more' (worth approximately £16,000 in today's money).

Over the next few blog posts, I’ll be taking a look at some of Austen’s predecessors and contemporaries who created a fresh role for themselves in society as authors. However, to avoid society's censure, like Austen, they often wrote under a cloak of anonymity. 

Frontispiece of a French edition of Persuasion, Jane Austen's 'La Famille Elliot' (1821) courtesy Wikimedia Commons. 

Maidservants

Ladies expected their female domestics should be clean and tidily dressed in muslin (not lace) caps, cotton and stuff gowns and petticoats, sturdy shawls of demure colours, and straw bonnets when going outdoors. In Persuasion, Mrs Musgrove complained that her daughter-in-law Mary’s ‘nursery-maid... is always upon the gad, and...she is such a fine-dressing lady, that she is enough to ruin any servants she comes near.’

And in Mansfield Park, Mrs Price was discomposed if she saw her servant Rebecca 'pass by with a flower in her hat' when out walking on Sundays.

A good master or mistress ensured that their servants received good, plain, plentiful food, and paid their medical expenses if ill. Servants were permitted to visit their friends and relations occasionally; Sunday was usually the most convenient day.
Ladies took great care to select servants with good references, and if possible hired those recommended by friends or family. A careless or slovenly maid could cause havoc in a household.

In January 1802, Jane Austen wrote to her sister Cassandra, 'We plan having a steady cook and a young, giddy housemaid, with a sedate, middle-aged man, who is to undertake the double office of husband to the former and sweetheart to the latter. No children, of course, to be allowed on either side'.
Illustrations: 'High life below stairs'. George Cruikshank, 1799.
‘Work for the plumber’. Thomas Rowlandson, 1810.  Both courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Hugh Thomson illustration for Mansfield Park. Author's collection.  

Jane Austen and Bath V: Walcot

St Swithin's Church tower.

Anne Elliot walks off with Mr Elliot.

Jane Austen fans will know that the novelist, like Persuasion's Anne Elliot, had a very strong 'disinclination for Bath', but the town held very fond memories for her parents.
That's probably why George Austen decided to retire there sometime towards the end of 1800. Over thirty years earlier, George and his wife Cassandra Leigh were married in the medieval church of St Swithin's Church, Walcot on 26 April 1764. 

Jane's aunt and uncle, the Leigh-Perrots, lived in Bath, too. And the town's genteel pleasures were just the ticket for a clergyman's retirement, with its libraries, shops, concerts - and therapeutic spa baths in case of illness.

 

St Swithin's Church.

George Austen's grave.

But despite the fame of the Bath waters, George was poorly during the last three years of his life. He died on 21 January 1805, and was buried in the crypt of St Swithin's; you can visit his gravestone in the churchyard.










All photos (c) Sue Wilkes.

Popping The Question

Mr Collins proposes to Charlotte Lucas.

For a Regency lady, marriage is ‘the only honourable provision for well-educated women of small fortune, and, however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservative from want’ (Pride and Prejudice).  So a marriage proposal from an eligible suitor is one of the most important moments of a young lady’s life.

Lizzy accepts Mr Darcy.

Common prudence dictates that you choose a partner with whom you can respect and esteem.  In Pride & Prejudice, Mr Bennet is extremely worried when Elizabeth tells him that Mr Darcy has proposed: ‘I know that you could be neither happy nor respectable, unless you truly esteemed your husband; unless you looked up to him as a superior.  Your lively talents would place you in the greatest danger in an unequal marriage.  You could scarcely escape discredit and misery’.

If all goes well, you’ll receive a proposal from an eligible young man in your first season.  If no-one suitable makes an offer after your first few seasons, you’ll be nearing the ‘years of danger’ like Elizabeth Elliott in Persuasion.

Capt.Wentworth gives Anne a letter.

Mr Knightley and Emma.

Every gentleman has his own way of declaring his love.  Mr Darcy’s first proposal to Elizabeth Bennet is passionate but unflattering: ‘In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you’.  Darcy does not recommend his suit when he declares that their marriage will be a ‘degradation’ and speaks of ‘the inferiority of your connections’.

So Elizabeth was puzzled how to accept Mr Darcy’s second proposal of marriage. She ‘immediately, but not very fluently, gave him to understand, that her sentiments had undergone so material a change...as to make her receive with gratitude and pleasure his present assurances’.

How should you say ‘Yes’?  when asked? When Mr Knightley proposed to Emma Woodhouse, she said ‘Just what she ought, of course.  A lady always does’.  

Illustrations courtesy of the elegant and erudite Molland’s website.