Merry Christmas from Jane Austen’s House

Every year we like to decorate the house in time for Christmas and also for the anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, which is on December 16th. In this, the first of two posts, we thought you might like to see  some photographs of the rooms as they are decorated this year. These beautiful photographs have all been taken for the blog by the Musuem’s photographer, Isabel Snowden

We try to use evergreens as much as possible for, not only are they traditional, but they would most probably have been used as decorations for teh Christmas season by the ladies who lived in the house with Jane Austen between 1809-1817, that is, her mother, her sister, Cassandra and their friend Martha Lloyd.

This is the fireplace in the Drawing Room, decorated with evergreens and with a  lovely floral arrangement on the hearth.

The portrait of Edward Austen Knight as a child in the entrance lobby, decorated with sprigs of  ivy and spruce.

And finally the Dining Room, with Jane Austen’s writing-table to the right by the window, with its fireplace decorated with fir, holly and ivy, for the season. In our next post we shall take a look at the rooms upstairs on the first floor.

We would like to take this opportunity to wish all you all a very Merry Christmas, and we sincerely hope that

May Your Christmas… abound in the Gaieties

which that Season generally brings