Jane Austen Bicentenary Collections Project to be funded by Heritage Lottery Fund

The Heritage Lottery Fund has announced that Jane Austen’s House Museum in Chawton, Hampshire will be one of 23 beneficiaries of the £5m Collecting Cultures Fund. Under HLF’s Collecting Cultures programme the Museum has been granted £191,600 which will enable the museum to enhance the scope of its collection. 

Mary Guyatt, Curator of Jane Austen’s House Museum, said ‘This grant will enable the Museum to develop its collection concentrating on items directly associated with Austen and her close circle, as well as period furnishings that are significant in helping to present the house as an artefact in its own right and to educate visitors about domestic life in Austen’s period.’

Isabel Hughes, Chair of JAHM Trustees said ‘The Museum’s distinctiveness is its guardianship of Austen’s material heritage. A project based on collections not only safeguards that heritage but also allows us to focus on the Museum’s unique assets.’

The project will run from late 2014 until 2017 building up to the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s death.