Literary Lovers: Jane Austen and the Brontës Tour 2025

After breakfast check out and meet your driver/guide in the lobby of the hotel and depart for the county of Hampshire. We take you back in time to the 18th and 19th Centuries, through a countryside of turnpikes and toll roads. Visit one of the important posting-houses and discover the fashionable modes of transport in Jane Austen’s novels: the curricle, the barouche landau and the gig. Visit The Vyne, a large stately home where Jane and her sister attended society dances. Free time for lunch in the tea room. Continue to Winchester for a tour of the city including the seeing the house where Austen died. Visit 11th Century Winchester Cathedral, to see where Jane Austen is buried and enjoy a tour of the Cathedral. This is truly Austen country and we promise many surprising additions along the way! (B)

Accommodation: Winchester Hotel or similar

Breakfast. Today we visit the elegant Georgian city of Bath and take a walking tour of the sites and houses where Jane Austen lived and visited. Explore places made famous in her Bath novels, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion, such as the Assembly Rooms, Pump Room, Abbey Church Yard and Bath Street. Visit the Jane Austen Centre and enjoy the authentic period atmosphere and watch the video of Jane Austen’s Bath. Enjoy the atmosphere and watch the Regency parade for the Jane Austen annual festival*. Visit the Holburne Museum for a tour with a costumed guide; take in Sydney Gardens behind the musum (where Jane often visited) and view the artwork behind your favourite Austen novels and regency china tea sets before you sit down in the Ballroom for a cream tea. The Holburne museum is also used in the filming of Bridgerton. Afternoon visit the picturesque village of Lacock, a popular setting for period dramas as it remains much as it did in the 18th Century. Lacock’s Church Street and High Street appear as locations in Emma and Pride & Prejudice. Option of a typical English afternoon tea in a country tea room or gardens (at own cost). (B)

*The Jane Austen festival and parade is only on the September departure.

Accommodation: Winchester Hotel or similar

Breakfast. Journey through the English countryside, seeing villages with thatched roof cottages and houses very much as they were during Jane’s time. Visit the site of Steventon Rectory, where Jane Austen was born and lived until she was twenty-five and where the initial drafts of Northanger Abbey, Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice were written. Halt at the old posting inn at Deane Gate and learn of its connections with Jane’s brother. Visit Chawton House, an Elizabethan Manor that once belonged to Jane’s brother. Explore Jane Austen’s home in Chawton where she lived for the last eight years of her life and the museum housing a fine range of Austen memorabilia. It was here that she revised and decided to publish Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Close by is St Nicholas’ Church, where Austen’s mother and sister are buried. Return to London early evening. (B)

Accommodation: Millennium Gloucester hotel or similar 

After breakfast, check out of the hotel and take a taxi (fare included) to Euston station. Train journey north, from London to Brontë country. Meet your local guide and visit Bolton Abbey, where Charlotte took her friend Ellen Nussey on one of her first visits to Haworth. Transfer to hotel for check in. (B)

Accommodation: Haworth Hotel or similar

Please note: The train journey is unaccompanied. You will be given your train tickets in advance and meet the guide in Bronte country on arrival at the train station in Leeds.

Breakfast. Visit Thornton where Patrick and Maria Brontë lived in the small parsonage with their children Maria and Elizabeth from 1815 and where Charlotte, Emily, Anne and Branwell were all born. After lunch (at own cost) enjoy a guided walk around Thornton to see key Brontë sites including Bell Chapel, where Patrick Brontë preached between 1815 and 1820 and where the Brontë children were baptised. Visit Shibden Hall, a 600-year-old medieval timber framed manor house and one of England’s oldest, dating back to 1420 – the house is a possible inspiration for ‘Thrushcross Grange’ in Emily’s Wuthering Heights. (B)

Accommodation: Haworth Hotel or similar

Breakfast. Spend the morning in Haworth, the main location for everything Brontë. Begin with a walking tour of the village to hear stories of what life was like in the Brontës’ day. Visit the famous Parsonage which Patrick Brontë, his wife Maria and their six children moved into in April 1820. See the dining room where Charlotte, Emily and Anne did most of their writing (including ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘Jane Eyre’ and ‘Agnes Grey’), the kitchen where they listened to their servant tell tales about the moors, the bedrooms – including Charlotte’s, in which she died – the study and the clock that Mr. Brontë would wind up every night. Visit Haworth Parish church, home to the Brontë Memorial Chapel and where the Brontë family (except Anne) are buried. Free time for lunch (at own cost) for which you may wish to try The Black Bull pub, where Bramwell used to drink, or one of the pretty tea rooms. Afternoon on the moors – enjoy a walking tour to see the legendary ruins of Top Withens Farm, believed to be Emily’s inspiration for ‘Wuthering Heights’ manor house. En route you will also see the famous Brontë Waterfall. Return to London for overnight. (B)

Accommodation: Millennium Gloucester hotel or similar 

Breakfast. Transfer to Heathrow airport for flight home – unless extending your stay. (B)