Jane Austen 250

2025 marks the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth and we’ll be celebrating throughout the year. Join us for brand new exhibitions, special events, collaborations and more.   We strongly recommend pre-booking your tickets to ensure all our visitors have the best possible experience.  Read on to find out what’s on during this celebratory year!

Our celebratory festivals!

Throughout 2025, we have been hosting a series of festivals to celebrate Jane Austen’s special anniversary year.  Thank you to everyone who joined us for our Pride and Prejudice Festival in January, our Spring Fling: Sense and Sensibility Festival in May, our Emma Festival in July and our Persuasion & Poetry Festival in September. Tickets are now on sale for our final festival, Jane Austen’s Birthday Celebration (12-16 December)!  Each festival features a programme of special events, including themed tours, walks, performances, workshops, pop-up talks, late views and more!

There’s something for everyone! Find out more and see the full Jane Austen’s Birthday Celebration line-up here. 

Our podcast!

When we kicked off our 2025 celebrations for Jane Austen’s 250th birthday, we were delighted to launch our new podcast!

A Jane Austen Year is a mindful, soothing and uplifting podcast that transports you to Jane Austen’s House in Chawton… Each month, join us on a seasonal journey through Jane Austen’s novels, the story of her life and the world she lived in. Discover scenes, letters, recipes, and objects from the museum collection, bound together with original music and sounds recorded in the House itself.

Each episode is recorded by the people who work at Jane Austen’s House, caring for this special place and protecting it for future generations.  Episodes will air on the 1st of the month.  Listen here!

This series accompanies our new book A Jane Austen Year – find it on our website.

Austenmania! exhibition

We’re excited to share our 2025 exhibition, supported by the BBC and De Montfort University. Austenmania! looks back to 1995 – an astonishing year of film and TV adaptations that changed the Austen landscape forever. 30 years on from this extraordinary year, and 250 years on from Jane Austen’s birth, we will celebrate the four landmark film and TV adaptations that were first seen in 1995: Andrew Davies’ seminal adaptation of Pride and Prejudice for the BBC starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle; Emma Thompson and Ang Lee’s stunning big-screen adaptation of Sense and Sensibility; BBC Screen Two’s quiet, unhurried adaptation of Persuasion starring Amanda Root and Ciarán Hinds; and the frothy masterpiece that is Clueless! – a brilliant reimagining of Emma set in the L.A. hills.

The exhibition showcases two original Pride and Prejudice transmission scripts from the Andrew Davies Archive and handwritten notes on the production from the Sue Birtwistle Archive, on loan from De Montfort University. Production shots, original cinema posters, merchandise and original press cuttings also feature in the exhibition. Austenmania! runs throughout 2025 – free with House entry!

Jane Austen and the Art of Writing

We’re thrilled to share our brand-new permanent exhibition, Jane Austen and the Art of Writing, which celebrates and centres Jane Austen as a ground-breaking and ambitious writer in the very house where she created her six beloved novels. This inspirational exhibition, now open, directly links Jane Austen’s creative process with the domestic space from which it came. It showcases treasures from our extraordinary collection, including objects that inspired Jane Austen and a full set of first editions of her novels – rarely seen together. The exhibition uses facsimiles of surviving manuscripts, touch objects, film and audio to provide a hands-on experience for visitors and to explain Jane Austen’s writing process. This permanent exhibition is free with House entry. 

Order our Book!

As part of our celebrations for Jane Austen’s 250th birthday next year, we published a book – and you can order your copy now or find it in our Gift Shop!

A Jane Austen Year charts the life, works and legacy of one of the world’s most beloved authors through the seasons of a year at Jane Austen’s House, the enchanting Hampshire cottage where she lived and wrote.

Dip into Jane’s letters to her sister, discover the story of the publication of Pride and Prejudice and the ‘topaze crosses’ that inspired Mansfield Park, and enjoy recipes that Jane herself would have known.

This delightful book offers a unique and intimate insight into Jane Austen’s world – her life, novels and letters, people and objects she knew, and of course her idyllic, inspiring home.

A new look for a special year!

We have once again worked with world-renowned design agency Pentagram to create a new visual identity for the celebratory year. The design is inspired by Jane Austen’s love of nature and the outdoors and references a number of key plants and objects, including the beautiful Blush Noisette rose which frames the doorway of the House and was introduced to Europe in 1817, the year of Jane Austen’s death. The design also includes an oak leaf and acorn, referencing a Wedgwood dinner service owned by the Austen women at Chawton, which Jane mentioned in a letter to her sister Cassandra in 1811: ‘On Monday I had the pleasure of receiving, unpacking & approving our Wedgwood ware. It all came very safely & upon the whole is a good match, tho’ I think they might have allowed us rather larger leaves, especially in such a Year of fine foliage as this.’ Jane Austen, 6 June 1811

The oak leaf in the design is also a nod to an oak tree in the museum garden which is a descendent of one planted by Jane Austen over 200 years ago. Also referenced in the design is the ‘Chawton Leaf’ wallpaper that hangs in the Dining Room, where Jane Austen’s writing table sits. The wallpaper was recreated from a fragment of historic wallpaper discovered in the Dining Room in 2018, that has been dated to the time when Jane Austen was living at the House.

2025 Opening Times

During 2025, we will be open the following days. Please note: all tickets must be pre-booked to ensure our visitors have the best possible experience during this celebratory year. 

Saturday 4th January to Sunday 20th April:
Open Wednesday to Sunday. Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Exception: We will be open on 27th and 28th January for our Pride & Prejudice festival and we will be open 7 days a week for the February half term holidays between Monday 17th and Sunday 23rd February.

Monday 21st April to Sunday 28th September: Open 7 days a week.
During this very busy period, we will be closed on the second Monday of each month to carry out essential conservation work and take care of our precious buildings and collections. We will therefore be closed on: Monday 12th May, Monday 9th June, Monday 7th July, Monday 11th August, Monday 8th September.

Wednesday 1st October to Sunday 14th December:
Open Wednesday to Sunday. Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.
Exceptions: We will be open 7 days for the October half term holidays between Monday 27th October and Sunday 2nd November. We will be closed between Monday 3rd and Friday 7th November.

Monday 15th to Sunday 21st December: Open 7 days – to celebrate Jane’s birthday!

Monday 22nd to Friday 26th December: House Closed 

Saturday 27th to Tuesday 30th December: House Open

Wednesday 31st December: House Closed

Keep in touch!

Watch this space for more news on special exhibitions, events and partnerships during this exciting celebratory year! Follow us on social media, keep an eye on our website and sign up to our newsletter. We can’t wait to welcome you to Jane Austen’s House. 

A Message from our Director

“ 250 years of Jane Austen is really something to celebrate and there will be no better place to celebrate this milestone than here at Jane Austen’s House.

As well as brand new exhibitions and events, there will be lots of ways to get involved and be a part of this extraordinary year commemorating this exceptional woman and her ongoing living legacy and influence. 

Sign up to our newsletter, follow us on social media and make sure you don’t miss anything that’s going on in this special place in this special year!” 

Lizzie Dunford, Jane Austen’s House Director 

We are delighted to work with our partners across Hampshire to celebrate 250 years of Jane Austen. For more events and celebrations across Hampshire, visit https://www.visit-hampshire.co.uk/whats-on/jane-austens-250