Travellers to Nottingamshire in Georgian and Regency times would have passed through elegant country towns and bustling market places in the Time of Jane Austen.
They would have seen grand country houses and enjoyed dances in candle-lit ballrooms and town Assembly Rooms. All the talk was of fashion, science and politics.
Local people watched in awe as new canals stretched across the landscape, enclosure created new fields and farms and new roads, with coaching inns for passengers, connected villages and towns.
It was a ‘new look’ county.
Tea drinking was all the rage….In 1811 Jane Austen wrote to her sister, Cassandra, that ‘we began our China Rea 3 days ago and I find it very good!’
But what was life like for workers in the hosiery trades, for labourers in the fields - and for the poor?
Did the spirit of unrest rise up in Nottinghamshire following the French Revolution? And why did Luddism break out in Nottingham and many other parts of the county?
Chris Weir takes us on a journey through ‘Nottinghamshire in the Time of Jane Austen’, illustrating trends and themes with a variety of images and using quotes from her novels.
