Jane Austen’s family history at Stoneleigh Abbey

The Elizabethan Wing and Medieval Cellars

Today I will tell the story of Jane Austen’s family who lived at Stoneleigh Abbey for generations before her visit.

The family history is there on the walls in the Abbey along with portraits of Jane Austen’s family line. The first of Jane’s Austen’s relatives to own Stoneleigh and live there was Thomas Leigh.

Stoneleigh Abbey had been purchased by a wealthy merchant, Sir Rowland Hill, after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1561. Thomas was Rowland Hill’s overseas agent. Thomas had been sent to London to make his fortune and apprenticed to Rowland by his father. Thomas was very successful. In his career he was Master of the Mercers’ Company, elected alderman, sheriff and finally Lord Mayor of London in 1558.

Sir Thomas Leigh – the first Leigh at Stoneleigh Abbey

Queen Mary died just days after Thomas Leigh was appointed Lord Mayor and so he had the honour of proceeding before Queen Elizabeth I in her coronation procession. Is it any wonder then that Jane Austen was so fiercely royalist. Thomas was then rewarded with a Knighthood.

Thomas was obviously shrewd and he married the niece of Sir Rowland Hill who owned Stoneleigh knowing she was her uncle’s appointed heir not only for Stoneleigh but for other estates too. However they made Stoneleigh their primary home and built a beautiful Elizabethan mansion from the ruins of the old Abbey. When Thomas and his wife Alice’s second son inherited he then added the Jacobean wing which had a horseshoe shaped staircase to the entrance and balcony which Jane Austen commented on in letters when she visited there in 1806. When she walked about Stoneleigh she would have been remembering that it was all built by her family’s ancestors. And the portraits of her great, great, great, great, great, grandparents in the hall would have awaited her.

Jacobean Entrance to Stoneleigh Abbey

Stoneleigh’s next revamp was undertaken by Lord Edward Leigh, who again married well, or rather married money. He inherited Stoneleigh in 1710 and then did the gentlemanly thing and went off for his grand tour. When he returned he had a desire to build his own Italian Palace. The Baroque West Wing. I am sure Jane’s mother most have spoken frequently of this grand family home which belonged to their relations. It must have been dream like for them to finally have the chance to see it and so unexpectedly too.

Stoneleigh Abbey West Wing

The next Lord Leigh inherited the property at the age of seven and he made his mark on Stoneleigh too decorating the walls and ceilings of Baroque West Wing with beautiful rococo plasterwork. Unfortunately the young Lord who lived at Stoneleigh with his sister turned quite mad. She must have despaired for him. For several years the records show fees paid to specialists in the Bedlam mental hospital and finally at the age of 32 he was declared insane by an Inquisition of Insanity. His uncle Lord Craven and his older sister Mary Leigh took over the management of Stoneleigh Abbey. Edward died in 1786 leaving the estate to his sister for the length of her life.

The Entrance Hall Stoneleigh Abbey

Mary never married but as her parents had died when she was just thirteen she’d grown up in London and she lived her life in the style of good ton as one of the wealthy landed elite of Britain. She attended the London seasons staying in Grove House in Kensington and spent her family’s fortune on dressing in the latest fashion and buying jewels. She did not only desire to keep herself in fashion either but her male servants too, who had four changes of livery and wore a claret or scarlet coat with lace trim.

Receipts from her accounts show that she spent money on music lessons, sheet music and she played cards and attended the races, the Opera and one of the fashionable pleasure gardens, Ranelagh. They also imply she entertained others at ‘at homes’ when she invited friends to tea and to gossip. In the fashionable day these were only brief social visits. However although she remained single she cannot have kept friends at a distance nor lived very much alone, her records show she frequently travelled with others and held house parties. In her will she left many gifts to those who were popular in high-society at the time – she also remembered her own family. Mary bequeathed ‘brilliant rings’ and small bequests to Cassandra (Jane Austen’s mother not her sister) and her two daughters.

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.

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Stoneleigh Abbey and Jane Austen’s family connections

Stoneleigh Abbey

Well I’ve had a wonderful day discovering loads more real life facts which Jane Austen mingled into her fiction. So many things I think this may well be another four blog saga. I certainly can’t fit it all in a day. Follow my blog on janelark.wordpress.com, if you don’t want to miss any.

Let me begin by explaining Jane Austen’s connection and why she visited Stoneleigh Abbey in August 1806. It must have been a bit dreamlike for her, as I am sure it would be for us. She’d previously endured the worst period of her life, living in Bath for two years watching her father’s health decline. He died on 21^st January 1805, and afterwards Jane, Cassandra and their mother moved to a cheaper tenancy in Gay Street in Bath for six months, then moved again into Trim Street, a cheap area of Bath. Jane must have been concerned through this period, wondering how they would cope without her father. She did not write any fiction in this period because she lost all inspiration, her imagination simply died.

But then her mother decided to remove from Bath and do what unmarried dependent female relatives did in that day. Visit their relatives for extended stays.

I have spoken of Stoneleigh in earlier blogs but this time I took a pen and paper so I can ensure I share all the juicy facts.

Jane and Mrs Austen’s first visit was to be to a cousin of Jane’s mother they had never actually met, who resided at Hamstall Ridware. They called in at Addlethorpe near Morton-on-the-Marsh on the way – this is where Mrs Austen had grown up – and called on a cousin they were very close to, the Rector Thomas Leigh. At the time of their visit the Rector Thomas Leigh received some brilliant and wonderfully shocking news. He had inherited Stoneleigh Abbey in Warwickshire, along with the fortune of that side of the Leigh family who’d passed away with no issue. He was advised by Mr Hill, the steward and executor of the will, to come quickly to ensure he claimed his inheritance as the will was likely to be disputed. There were many distant relatives. He immediately asked if he might bring his Cousin Mrs Austen and her daughter, Jane. So Jane and her mother began an exciting hurried journey up the fosse way from Cirencester (very near where I live and the way we travelled today to go to Stoneleigh Abbey too). In the chaise with them was also Thomas Leigh’s sister, Elizabeth Leigh. The men rode beside the carriage.

They approached Stoneleigh Abbey from the village of Stoneliegh and saw initially the Elizabethan red stone face, an old wing which was by then mainly used for service. They then came past the Jacobean wing, with a crescent shaped red stone staircase (which was replaced by the porch front in the picture below after Jane’s visit) leading to a first floor entrance facing a bowling green but they did no alight there.

Jacobean Entrance to Stoneleigh Abbey

They came about the corner and faced the west wing built in a silver coloured stone in baroque style. We do not have to simply imagine how impressed Jane was, we can read it in her letters and her books.

Stoneleigh Abbey West Wing

She would have carried the manuscript of Pride and Prejudice with her at the time and when the Gardiners reach Lambton you begin hearing things she might have adapted in the Manuscript. She mentions Warwick and Kenilworth, which are places she visited while staying at Stoneleigh Abbey.

Certainly visiting Stoneleigh Abbey reawakened Jane’s imagination and when she wrote Mansfield Park in 1811-1814 you hear constant reflections on Stoneleigh Abbey, for instance Fanny Price joins an outing to visit Sotherton Court and Jane’s descriptions begin as they near the house. ‘Those are the almshouses built by some of the family’.

Almshouses Stoneleigh Village

My guess is that Jane described her own feelings ‘Her eye was eagerly taking in everything within her reach; and after being at some pains to a get a view of the house.’

Next week, I’ll tell you more of what Jane Austen found there.

Jane Lark is a writer of authentic, passionate and emotional love stories.

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