Jane Austen museum forced to ban fans from scattering human ashes in her garden



Author: Drawing of Jane Austen



The 17th-century cottage, with its quintessentially English garden filled with flower beds and herbs, has long been a place of pilgrimage for devotees of Jane Austen.

Now it seems increasing numbers are choosing the author's former home, which has become a museum in her honour, as their final resting place.

Museum staff have been shocked to find mounds of human ash around the grounds, left by relatives creeping in to honour the final wishes of loved ones.

But the management of Jane Austen's House Museum has moved to halt the practice.

In an open letter to the Jane Austen Society, collections manager Louise West wrote: 'While we understand many admirers of Jane Austen would love to have ashes laid here, it is something we do not allow.

'It is distressing for visitors to see mounds of human ash, particularly so for our gardener. Also, it is of no benefit to the garden!'

Austen moved to the cottage at Chawton, Hampshire, in 1809, when she was 33.

She wrote or revised all her novels there, including Pride And Prejudice, Persuasion and Emma.

Mrs West said: 'On three or four occasions our gardener Celia Simpson has found piles of human ash placed in the garden secretly.

'I suppose it was the ashes of someone who was a great lover of Jane and they had asked their friends or relatives to do this, or their family felt it would be nice.

'But we don't really feel it's appropriate. If it enriched the soil we wouldn't mind so much but the ashes have no nutrients at all.'

Austen lived at the cottage with her mother and sister Cassandra after the death of their vicar father.

Novelist's former home in Chawton, Hampshire



She spent eight years there until ill health forced a move to Winchester in 1817 to be closer to her doctor. She died six weeks later.

Jane Austen expert Professor Kathryn Sutherland, of Oxford University, said: 'I can imagine people wanting their ashes close to a well-loved author.

'The appeal of Jane is that she is very comforting and gives the reader solace, almost like a friend.'

The author herself, renowned for her sense of fun, would have been delighted by the practice, according to Mrs West.

She said: 'I think she would think it's hilarious and be thrilled she inspired such devotion'.