Description: We arrived and outside was a man dressed up in appropriate custom of regency period. The house is similar to one that Jane Austen lived in for a short time while living in Bath. On entering there is a small shop to the right, where we bought our tickets and had a peruse of the items on sale. Of course there were copies of Austens books and several dvds of films and tv series inspired by them, and a fair amount of bits and pieces from a quill to a button pin with 'I love Darcy'. It did however fill a few minutes till the tour of the centre began...but not enough as we headed upstairs to the first floor and to a waiting room, were we sat for another few minutes.
A woman dressed a regency style dress appeared and brought us through to another room with more rows of seats. She then proceeded to give us some of the history of Jane Austen. Now listening to her, while Bath appears in two of Austen's novels - Northanger Abbey and Persuasion she noted both seemed to reflect different encounters Austen had from a short visit to when the family moved here and after the death of her father when the family moved further and further down the social ladder reflected in the decline of the accommodation they could afford.
After the lecture we went back down stairs to the ground floor and the museum section of the centre. This section really seemed lacklustre...we had a quick walk round...the best bit was the bonnets to try on at the end and that was a minute's worth of fun. They did have water biscuits which were the treats of the day...but oh dear they were unpleasant to eat.
We thought the idea of the tearooms in the centre sounded nice...tea and cake always sounds good...so we climbed up to the top floor...had a look in to the tea rooms...which while lovely looking, the selection of cake that day did not impress and so we decided that as the desire for cake meant we needed to try another place for afternoon tea.
All in all...it was okay. Bath is full of interesting places, and this is a bit lacklustre in comparison to other sites. I am a fan of Austen, so it was nice to get a little more sense of Austen's life, and the influence that her different experiences of Bath had on her novels. It was just an okay place to visit, one can imagine it could be improved, but it was not so bad that it should be avoided. It all depends how long you have in Bath...since I was only there for a day...we probably should have skipped it...but here for a weekend...then probably worth a visit. So not on the top of the list of things to do in Bath but still on the list.
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