Jane Austen home opens to public for first time

The house where Jane Austen lived for the final weeks of her life has been opened to the public for the first time.

The novelist lived in a home on College Street, Winchester, until her death on the 18 July 1817.

Winchester College has opened the house to the public as part of the global celebrations to mark 250 years since Austen was born.

People can visit the building on Wednesdays and Saturdays from 4 June until 30 August and displays and artefacts will show how she spent her last days in the city.

Dr Richard Foster, the keeper of collections at Winchester College, described it as "very exciting".

"Jane Austen is an author who means so much to lots of people and so i think people will be very excited to be in this space where she lived and where she died," he said.

Dr Foster said Austen is believed to have moved to the house for the last eight weeks of her life, when she travelled to Winchester to see a doctor.

Austen and her sister Cassandra rented rooms in the building, he said.

He believes the house has not changed a great deal since her death in the 19th Century and the rooms remain in a similar style to how Austen would have known them.

"It's a rare chance to see and experience one of the places where she lived and where she wrote her last letters and her last poem," he said.

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