Eventually Hampshire’s literary roads lead to Winchester, John Keats’ ‘exceeding pleasant town.’ Literary explorations might start at the Hospital of St. Cross and Almshouses of Noble Poverty. Built in 1132, the almshouses provided shelter for 13 poor men; today they provide a home for 25 men. The tradition of giving a ration of ale and bread to wayfarers is still maintained upon request. Ralph Waldo Emerson was unimpressed by the parsimonious ration.

Anthony Trollope, who attended Winchester School, knew of the St. Cross Hospital, and it is probably the basis for his novel The Warden. Historically, the men of ‘noble poverty’ included one John Watson, M.D., who practiced in India. Conan Doyle, as a doctor in Winchester, often visited St. Cross and possibly took this name for the chronicler and companion of Sherlock Holmes.

Keats frequently walked from St. Cross to Winchester. The path follows the River Itchen to Winchester Cathedral. Following this path in the fall has a particular piquancy as it inspired Keats’ ‘Ode to Autumn.’ In Winchester, a minor detour passes the house, now a private residence, where Jane Austen died.

Within Winchester Cathedral, Keats paced the great nave reading and composing letters to his lover Fanny Brawne. In the appropriately named Fishermen’s Apostle Chapel, Izaac Walton is buried. A commemorative window depicts The Compleat Angler’s author quietly reading by a river. The cathedral is synonymous with Jane Austen’s grave, which curiously makes no mention of her literary genius. Her memorial window, though, is full of allegorical references to writing.

The literary trail continues north to Wherwell, a pretty village by the River Test. Walton, unsurprisingly, fished there, and W.H. Hudson used neighboring Harewood Forest as the setting for his story ‘Dead Man’s Plack’ and in his Hampshire Days.

At Kingsclere the route comes onto chalk downland, the setting for Richard Adams’ Watership Down. A stroll along the escarpment is always rewarding, with good views into the Thames Valley. Rabbits will certainly be seen.

The route turns southeast to places associated with Jane Austen. At the end of a narrow lane in Steventon is St. Nicholas Church where Austen’s father was rector for 25 years. Austen was born in the rectory, now destroyed, in December 1775. Here she wrote Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice, though they were not published until much later. Much of her incisive social writing was gleaned from her full social life that included dancing at many large houses in the neighborhood, such as The Vyne. The Austens’ associations with the church are marked by the unusual weather vane, a quill pen and the family graves.

In 1801 the Austens moved to Bath and then in 1806 to Southampton. This was a sterile time for Jane Austen’s writing, though within the social milieu of those cities she was making pertinent observations for her novels. In 1809 Austen, her mother, sister Cassandra and friend Martha Lloyd moved to Chawton. From the beginning, Austen was happy at Chawton, writing:

Our Chawton home,
How much we find, Already in it,
to our mind;
And how convinced that when
complete
It will our other houses beat.

Within this contentment, she quickly revised Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice and obtained her first literary success.

Austen and her sister Cassandra both enjoyed walking, and it is pleasant to follow in their footsteps. They were particularly fond of a walk into Farringdon, an easy stroll that can be extended to Gilbert White’s Selborne, bringing the tour of Hampshire’s rich literary heritage full circle. Most visitors to Chawton, though, are content to walk to the local church, St. Nicholas, where in a quiet corner of the yew-studded churchyard Austen’s mother and sister are buried.

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This article was written by Chris Sharp and originally appeared in the July 2005 issue of British Heritage.

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