Sense and Sensibility: Where to stay for a Jane Austen-inspired escape

On 25 September, this year’s Sense and Sensibility will introduce Jane Austen’s razor-sharp wit and biting social commentary to a whole new generation of gooey-eyed romantics. Like Emma Thompson’s much-loved 1995 adaptation and the novel long before it, the new film promises fierce heroines, men whose charms cannot always be trusted and – of course – plenty of yearning in bonnets and breeches.

Alongside the Dashwood sisters and the men who enter their lives, Sense and Sensibility features another prominent character: the English country house. Across Austen’s novels, homes reveal as much about their occupants as their conversation. There is Pemberley – Mr Darcy’s magnificent Derbyshire estate in Pride and Prejudice, whose beauty and good order prompt Elizabeth Bennet to reconsider its owner – and the old abbey that fires Catherine Morland’s Gothic imagination in Northanger Abbey. Sense and Sensibility’s Barton Cottage may lack the thatched roof and honeysuckle expected of a picturesque retreat, but it contains something grander homes cannot always guarantee: genuine domestic happiness.

More than two centuries after Austen’s novel was first published, the prospect of briefly calling an English country house home remains just as appealing – especially when securing the keys no longer requires a favourable marriage.

Read on for our picks for an escape straight out of an Austen novel.

Austen House

Few holiday homes can claim a direct connection to Austen herself. Austen House, however, can. The Georgian townhouse in Marylebone was once owned by Jane’s brother Henry, whose banking career gave his sister practical support and whose place in London society offered her a useful window onto the capital. Jane stayed with Henry during several visits to London, and one suspects very little escaped her notice.

The house has since been reimagined in a suitably theatrical Regency style. There is Jane’s Sitting Room, while bedrooms named for Cassandra, Henry and Eliza acknowledge the wider Austen family. Four-poster beds, roll-top baths and antiques supply the historical atmosphere, albeit with rather better plumbing than any of the Austens enjoyed.

Colleton Hall

The Dashwood women’s move to Devon early in Sense and Sensibility changes the scale of their lives and establishes much of the novel’s landscape. Barton Cottage sits in a fertile valley, with wooded hills nearby and open country beyond its windows. Life there is smaller than at Norland – the grand family estate they have left behind – though by no means without its pleasures.

Colleton Hall offers a grander interpretation of that Devon retreat. The Grade II-listed house lies within 38 acres of private woodland and parkland between Exmoor and Dartmoor, with Exeter close enough for a day in the city. Its Georgian features, drawing room and long Regency dining table establish the period mood, while an ancient oak, lake and wooded walks make the most of the surrounding countryside.

There are six bedrooms, each with its own bathroom – a domestic arrangement of which Mrs Dashwood could only have dreamed.

Earnshill House

In Pride and Prejudice, Pemberley does more than impress our young heroine, Elizabeth Bennet; its beauty and good order prompt her to reconsider her judgment of the brooding Mr Darcy. Earnshill House makes a similarly persuasive first impression. The Grade I-listed Georgian manor stands at the end of a sweeping drive on a 700-acre Somerset estate. Its warm brick façade, Palladian proportions and tall sash windows belong to the architectural world Austen knew well. Inside, the grand dining hall and oak-panelled library continue the sense of occasion.

Beyond the house, woodland paths run past a rose walk and beneath the estate’s old trees – the sort of setting in which first impressions might be revised over the course of a well-timed walk.

Audrey House

No Austen-inspired escape would be complete without the inclusion of Bath. The city provides the social machinery of two of her novels – the youthful Northanger Abbey, in which an inexperienced heroine encounters fashionable society for the first time, and the more mature Persuasion, a story about lost love and the possibility of second chances. Austen also lived here herself between 1801 and 1806.

Audrey House is an elegant Georgian townhouse in the heart of the city. Tall windows and period proportions set the scene, while its central position puts Bath’s crescents and Assembly Rooms within easy reach. Seven bedrooms accommodate fourteen guests – enough company to create your own social season.

Meadow Cottage

Not every Austen heroine requires a vast estate. Barton Cottage is memorable precisely because it is not Norland. Its comforts are modest, its household intimate and its architectural failings promptly catalogued. Austen notes that it lacks the green shutters and honeysuckle walls required of a properly picturesque cottage. The Dashwoods love it anyway.

Meadow Cottage has no difficulty meeting the picturesque ideal. The beautifully restored 18th-century cottage sits within Dorset’s historic Deans Court estate, with its own walled garden and orchard. Inside, there are chalk-white walls and vintage furnishings around a wood-burning stove, creating a setting that feels both warm and considered.

Three bedrooms make this an Austen escape on a companionable scale. The shepherd’s hut offers further refuge for anyone overcome by company, romantic disappointment or the conversational efforts of an unexpected visitor.

Emley Woodhouse

We promise we haven’t chosen this solely for the name’s striking resemblance to the heroine of Emma. Although we suspect Emma Woodhouse – a well-intentioned but not always successful matchmaker – would approve of a little romantic interference at Emley Woodhouse.

This Grade II-listed Georgian country house stands in two and a half acres of private grounds in West Yorkshire, with apple trees in the garden and open fields beyond. Inside, original features sit alongside more contemporary furnishings. There is a formal dining room with space for fourteen – well suited to dinners at which affections may be observed and intentions misunderstood – as well as a fireside snug for subsequent analysis.

Seven bedrooms accommodate up to seventeen guests, while a footpath through the garden gate leads towards nearby woods and a stream. Yorkshire may be some distance north of Austen’s usual territory, but the pleasures of a handsome house and good company travel well.

Cartmel Mansion

Built for a wealthy landowner in 1815, Cartmel Mansion belongs to Austen’s own era, with Emma published that year and Persuasion and Northanger Abbey following posthumously in 1817.

The drawing room retains a fitting sense of occasion, with an open fire and a handsome Gillows of Lancaster bookcase. The traditional dining room brings the household together, while opulent suites accommodate up to 22 guests across the mansion and its separate lodges.

Cartmel Mansion has changed considerably since its construction, acquiring a cinema room and a cellar snug that would puzzle even Austen’s most worldly characters. Its essential pleasures, however, remain familiar. Six acres of landscaped gardens offer long walks and far-reaching views on the southern edge of the Lake District, as well as enough space to escape a tiresome relation without appearing rude.

Windermere Gothic Mansion

Catherine Morland, the young heroine of Northanger Abbey, has read enough Gothic novels to expect secret passages and supernatural disturbances from any suitably old house. Austen gently mocks her overactive imagination and the literary fashion that has fuelled it, though this does little to diminish the appeal of spending a few nights somewhere with actual Gothic credentials.

If Northanger Abbey proves less sinister than Catherine had hoped, Windermere Gothic Mansion comes closer to the house of her imagination. The Grade II-listed Victorian mansion stands on the shore of Lake Windermere, surrounded by private grounds and the shadowy contours of the fells. Grand hallways, sweeping staircases and a handsome library give the imagination plenty to work with.

Fortunately, the resemblance ends before anything alarming occurs. Its 18 bedrooms accommodate 36 guests, making solitude highly unlikely, while the cocktail bar offers a more appealing evening diversion than searching for incriminating papers by candlelight. Still, when the lake darkens and the old house settles for the night, even the most sensible guest might find their imagination beginning to wander…

If the new Sense and Sensibility leaves you longing for an English country escape, explore our wider collection of holiday homes in England. With manor houses and characterful cottages across the UK, there are plenty more settings for an Austen-inspired stay.