19th Century England

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Oct 29th, 2002, 10:09 AM

Cat

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19th Century England

Hi, all. My friends and I have a healthy obsession with all things 19th-century London (and the UK at large): Jane Austen, Victorian London, the Regency Period, social & economic classes, etc. Yes, we're saps. We'd like to travel to the UK in the spring/early summer 2003 to explore some of the places we obsess about: "old" London, great estates, the parks and gardens, county seats, heaths, the homes of earls, dukes, viscounts, et al. Any advice for a group of late-20s sappy women who aren't afraid to walk, hike, bike, drive, train, explore and immerse themselves in history? Many thanks in advance...

Oct 29th, 2002, 10:17 AM

Rita

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This may or not fit into your criteria, but if you like literature, history, and woman authors, you really need a map and a stroll through Bloomsbury.

Oct 29th, 2002, 10:23 AM

janis

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OK - a LOT depends on long you have. But here are the minimums: London - walk the edwardian and 19th century garden squares, take the jack the ripper walk, go to the V&A and especially the costume galleries, walk through Hampstead Heath and Highgate and a hundred other things. Then go SW to Hampshire and Dorset and up into Wiltshire - walk on the pier at Lyme Regis, spend a couple of days in Bath just enjoy the Regency period. There are a LOT of other places you could and probably shoud go - but for two weeks that is what I'd do -- London for a week and Dorset/Bath and surrounding area for about 5 days. Then maybe 2 days in Oxford to get the college experience.

Oct 29th, 2002, 05:26 PM

Q.P.

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I happen to share this particular obsession! more Victorian than Regency, but still... Check out the sights and tips at this address: http://www.indiana.edu/~victoria/trip.html#fun My personal favorites include the Carlyle House in Chelsea (great for a Sunday afternoon) and the Old Operating Theatre in Southwark. And of course you'll wan to take some organized walks -- Dickens's London, for instance. But there is so much more. You two are going to have the time of your lives! Q.P.

Oct 29th, 2002, 05:39 PM

kam

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Bath and the Cotwolds come immediately to mind.

Oct 30th, 2002, 02:31 AM

andrew

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Well if you like Jane Austen - you must visit her old house in Chawton which is in Hampshire near the town of Alton and where she wrote Pride and Prejudice. There is a website with more information if you do a search on "Jane Austen Chawton"

Oct 30th, 2002, 03:43 AM

Jen

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Lots of Jane Austen stuff in Bath, including a museum house (though it doesn't get rave reviews). I understand that Sydney Gardens features in her life, too -- we enjoyed staying at the B&B known as the Sydney Gardens Hotel (they have a private gateinto hte gardens).

Oct 30th, 2002, 11:39 AM

Cat

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Thanks for the input... Any suggestions for the best time of year to go? How long should we go for? Is 5 days too short? And would it be realistic to consider side trips to Scotland and/or Ireland and/or Wales?

Oct 30th, 2002, 01:22 PM

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Erddig is one of the best-known British historic houses for seeing what it was like for servants: http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/scri...PROPERTYID=135

Oct 30th, 2002, 04:26 PM

#10

Jen

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Is 5 days too short for what? It's a very short time for a trip to the UK. You might be able to squeeze in Wales if you go to Bath, but with such a short time, you'd really be better-off just staying in London, or perhaps doing one day trip outside of the city. If you are going out to the contryside, it will be prettier if you go between May and October. Kids are on school holidays from mid-July to early September, so things are more crowdedthen.

Oct 30th, 2002, 05:44 PM

#11

Ben Haines

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If I stand my mind in Piccadilly Circus and sweep my thoughts round in a clockwise direction I think of these monuments of the nineteenth century: University College London and the autoicon of Jeremy Bentham The Victorians represented in the British Library St Pancras station King's Cross station Dicken's house The National Portrait Gallery The Law Courts on the Strand The Gfrench paintings in the Courtauld Institute Leadenhall Market The Ragged School museum The Old Operating Theatre The villas on Sydenham Hill The dinosaurs of Crystal Palace The Palace of Westminster (Parliament) The Florence Nightingale Museum The nineteenth century pictures in Tate Britain Carlyle's house Sion House Apsley House The Wellington Arch The Natural History Museum The Victoria and Albert museum The rooms of the princess Victoria in Kensington Palace Marble Arch The Faraday museum The Sherlock Holmes museum The Portland Hotel Hampstead The National Portrait Gallery Welcome to London Ben Haines

Oct 31st, 2002, 06:10 AM

#12

Cat

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Thank you! All these responses - I feel like I'm there already! Some more random questions... Re: day trips to places like Bath or the Cotswolds - should we plan these before we leave the States or can we throw them into our itinerary once we land in London? Re: weather - how humid/oppressively hot does it become in the summer (June-August)? And finally, re: sites and streets - how much has the character of the neighborhoods changed from the 19th century to now (I of course realize none of us would have first-hand knowledge)? For example, is Mayfair still THE place to live, and is Cheapside still considered "slummy" (for lack of a better word, forgive me)? Again, thanks in advance...

Oct 31st, 2002, 08:03 AM

#13

david west

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Mayfair is still VERY upmarket. Cheapside is in the middle of the banking district "the square mile" and no one lives there at all. Jane Austen is buried in winchester Cathedral, a good trip together with Chawton. Lots of central London, and especially east london areas were bombed flat in the war or razed by the salaried vandals of council planning committees. For example when the film "From Hell" wanted to recreate ripper's london they had to film in Prague as there is no "Ripper's London" left.

Oct 31st, 2002, 09:12 AM

#14

elaine

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Hi Cat Some more ideas (but not all in 5 days!) Chatsworth House in Derbyshire (said by some to be the model for JA's decription of Pemberley Lyme Regis as Janis said for "Persuasion" and also "The French Lieutenant's Woman" Bath, also as mentioned above and as Rita suggested, walk all over Bloomsbury, there are plaques on so many houses saying who once lived there. Include Gordon Square ( I found Lytton Strachey's house there.) Just outside of York you have Castle Howard, the model for the mansion in "Brideshead Revisited" But getting back to an earlier era Have you read the entertaining book "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England"? Amazon has it, and I love thumbing through it. You also might want to include Oxford or Cambridge in your itinerary. I think you might also enjoy in the spring or summer afternoon tea near Kew Gardens at the Maids of Honour Tea Room. I have a file on London and the UK, including some websites which may be of some help; if you'd like to see it, email me.

Oct 31st, 2002, 09:54 AM

#15

Mountain

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Fran - Five days will not be enough time in London let alone trying to see other areas. We were over there March of 2002 for one week and made a couple day trips out of the city and now we are headed back in March 2003 because we just did not have enough time in London. We hve become obessed with London, what a wonderful city!

Oct 31st, 2002, 10:57 AM

#16

Ben Haines

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You can throw in day trips once you are here. From Monday to Friday fares are lower after 0930, so you should put longer distance trips, like Bath, into Saturday or Sunday, when you can start any time. But as you see and as others have said, you can readily fill your time in London alone. If you use http://www.worldclimate.com/ for a city you know, you can compare with London, for which July figures are 2.3 inches of rain in the month, and average temperature 66 degrees Fahrenheit, while August figures are 2.3 inches and 65.3 degrees Mr West puts the position well. Mayfair is now chiefly offices, though the few people who live there do pay a lot. Cheapside is a very expensive business area, and nobody lives there. Top places to live fairly centrally include Chelsea and the Thamesside below Tower Bridge. Our slums lie in estates of social housing in tower blocks about three miles from Piccadilly: they are unsafe to walk in. Neither our top housing nor our slums look anything like they once did: both categories are apartments (flats), not houses. You will find fine Victorian houses in Hampstead, Greenwich, Blackheath, and on Sydenham Hill. I am glad to say we can show you no Dickensian slums. What Hitler left standing we cheerfully tore down. The Jack the Tripper tours try to show you a few vestiges.

Oct 31st, 2002, 11:47 AM

#17

carolyn

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Ben, was Jack the Tripper a pun, a typo, or a Freudian slip?

Nov 1st, 2002, 01:53 PM

#18

Carla

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You might want to temper your expectations just a little. Masterpiece Theatre goes to great lengths to set up those exteriors so it looks very period. But England has not stayed in the 19th century. It is a thoroughly modern place, so don't be too disappointed if you are not totally immersed in the time period.