Jane Austen's England — and Hampshire in particular — are being lauded in the anniversary year of the author's birth. And quite rightly so, says Kate Green. In case you are wondering, the place to go on holiday this year is, according to The New York Times ’s 50 places to visit in 2025, Jane Austen’s England.
Yes, Hampshire trumps the Galápagos Islands, New York’s own revamped museum spaces, the Indian state of Assam, White Lotus Thailand — and Greenland. The next European destination listed is Cézanne’s home town of Aix-en-Provence, France, in seventh place. The Austen salutation cites, of course, celebrations for the 250th anniversary of her birth, many of which are in Hampshire, at her birthplace of Steventon, her brother’s home at Chawton and her grave in Winchester Cathedral.
Austenmania shows no signs of abating and Hampshire, a county rarely mentioned in the same breath for holidays as Devon or Norfolk, should make the most of it. Away from the rat-runs to the capital, it’s a county of quiet enchantments: buried farms, tiny lanes, squat, rural churches, such as atmospheric, whitewashed, 11th-century St Hubert’s, Idsworth, planted in the middle of a field. Its landscapes include the 1,000-year-old New Forest, where fallow deer, ponies and pigs wander and ancient commoning customs prevail.
Its clear chalkstreams, inspiration for Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies , are paradise for fishermen; its mystical, high barrows, where racehorses gallop .