Jane Austen’s House in Chawton, Hampshire, is an ACE accredited museum set in the house where Jane Austen lived and wrote. It is the most treasured Austen site in the world. It was here that Jane’s genius flourished and where she revised, wrote, and had published all her major works: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. Jane Austen’s House is the only house where Jane Austen lived and wrote that is open to the public. The Museum holds an important collection of objects associated with Jane Austen, including letters written by Jane and personal effects belonging to her and her family. Particular highlights include her jewellery and the table at which she wrote her much loved novels. Jane lived at what is now Jane Austen’s House for the last eight years of her life. She moved here in 1809 with her mother, sister Cassandra and friend Martha Lloyd after a period spent living in lodgings. The house was owned by Jane’s brother Edward, who had been adopted by the wealthy Knight family and had since inherited the Chawton Estate. The house – a 17th century building – was offered to the women rent-free for life. In May 1817, after a period of ill health, Jane Austen left the village to seek medical treatment in Winchester. She died two months later, on 18 July 1817. Jane’s mother and sister continued to live at the house for the rest of their lives. In 1845 the house was split into three dwellings to provide homes for staff on the Chawton estate and the building remained in this state until it was put up for sale in 1947. After an appeal by the Jane Austen Society, the house was bought by Mr T.E. Carpenter who turned it into a Museum dedicated to the life and works of Jane Austen, opening to the public in 1949.