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Article: House and Home: Homes fit for heroines Houses seen as `respectable but modest' in Jane Austen's day are now snapped up at pounds 500,000-plus, finds Ann Morris
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- December 1, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1996 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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THE Old Rectory at Chiddingstone has everything: the pleasing
proportions of an early Georgian house, a tree-lined drive edged
with sweeping lawns, and, beyond, paddocks, the village church and
rolling Kent landscape.
"Kent is the only place for happiness," wrote Jane Austen, in one
of her many letters to her sister Cassandra. And the 100 viewers
who tramped through the Old Rectory this autumn obviously thought
so too - it sold well in excess of its pounds 625,000 price tag,
through Hamptons.
The Old Rectory is probably the sort of "comfortable home" Jane
Austen had in mind for Elizbeth Bennet's good friend Charlotte
Lucas when she was married off to the smarmy curate, Mr Collins, in
Pride ...