The coach-loads of literary-minded tourists in search of whispers of Jane Austen tend to head to the grand cities of Bath or Winchester – but a “forgotten” Hampshire village with strong connections to the writer is getting in on the act.
Villagers in Overton near Basingstoke have decided they have been too modest for too long about their very solid Austen links and are bidding to attract more visitors this year, the 250th anniversary of her birth.
An enthusiastic band of volunteers have set up a series of walking and cycling trails that take in the sights Austen would have come across when she lived in the area for the first 25 years of her life, and where her ideas about society, love, and family took shape.
This weekend the first official guided tour is taking place and accommodation providers are undertaking marketing drives to try to bring in Austen aficionados this year and in the future.
Austen was born in the nearby very small village of Steventon in 1775 and grew up in the area, strolling around the meadows and along the banks of the trout-filled River Test and shopping in 18th-century Overton.
Anna Thame, one of the volunteers behind the Overton Jane Austen Trails scheme, said residents were keen to remind the world at large of their Austen links.
She said: “This is where she lived for 25 years but Overton fell off the Austen map and nobody is sure why. It’s been the best-kept Austen secret until now. We have been forgotten, really.
“Overton was a bustling, raucous kind of place and it is where life was for Jane in her early years. It’s where the merchants were, it’s where she posted her letters. She wrote early drafts of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey here. The influences of these villages shaped her.”
The trails take in the site of the Steventon rectory, where Austen was born and where the family lived until 1801. The rectory has been demolished, probably one reason why the area has slid off the Austen map.
The trails pass the grand Court House, overlooking Overton, where Jane’s brother, James Austen, lived.
Another key feature is the site of the post office – where Austen once told off the postmaster for overcharging her, and from where an early incarnation of Pride and Prejudice was sent to a publisher. The book was rejected by return post.
The house of Austen’s friend, Anne Lefroy, in another village, Ashe, is also highlighted. Austen had a romance with Lefroy’s nephew, Tom Lefroy. In 1804 Anne Lefroy fell from her horse at the top of Overton Hill and died.
“So many of these events must have affected her,” said Thame. “We wanted to bring these stories back to the light.”
There are seven volunteers in the core trails team, all women. The project has been funded by the UK government’s shared prosperity fund to the tune of £15,836 and supported by Overton parish council, among others.
Another volunteer, Valda Stevens, said her family had lived in the area for generations, but she had not known much about the local Austen connections until the project was launched.
“We’ve done quite a lot of investigation of old newspaper cuttings and looked at parish registers, which has been particularly rewarding. We’ve found lots of connections between people who live here now and those who were here in Jane Austen’s time,” she said.
Noelle Gibbs, also a project stalwart, said: “It’s exciting looking at Jane Austen through the prism of Overton. Jane loved walking and she loved the countryside. To be able to walk in the same countryside where she walked is wonderful.”
The Jane Austen Society has given its seal of approval: “The trails put Jane Austen back on the map in this corner of Hampshire, reminding us of her roots in Steventon, where she developed her genius as a writer.”
