Saving the roof of Jane Austen’s Hampshire cottage

3 November 2021

Good news for Jane Austen fans who like, or are one day hoping, to visit the house in the English village of Chawton, Hampshire, where she spent the final eight years of her life, and wrote several of her novels… funds have been raised to repair the roof of her old cottage, which was built in the seventeenth century.

The roof was last refurbished in 1948 before the House opened to the public. Over 70 years on and over a million visitors later, major repairs are required to ensure the watertightness of the building and preserve the museum collection.