The latter offer was accepted, and preparations were made to alter the cottage, which had been a steward’s residence, into a comfortable dwelling. The cottage is still standing, close by the main road, and may be seen by anyone in passing; it is of considerable size, and there are six bedrooms besides garrets. It stands close to the junction of two roads, one of which passes through Winchester to Southampton, and the other through Fareham to Gosport. Chawton lies about as far north-west of Winchester as Steventon does north. The considerable country town of Alton, which would be convenient for shopping, is only about a mile from the village. The cottage, dreary and weather-beaten in appearance, is of a solid square shape, and abuts on the high-road with only a paling in front. It is not an attractive looking dwelling, but probably at the time was fresher and brighter in appearance than it is now. It had also the advantage of a good garden. It is now partially used for a club or reading-room and partially by cottagers. At the junction of the two roads aforesaid is a muddy pond, that which was playfully referred to by Jane in writing to her nephew, who had not been well, when she says “you may be ordered to a house by the sea or by a very considerable pond.” A short distance along the Gosport Road is the entrance gate to the Manor House, and about fifty yards up the drive is the pretty little church, considerably altered since Jane’s time, with pinnacled and ivy-mantled tower. Just above it is the fine old Elizabethan house. In 1525 one William Knight had a lease of the place; the house itself was probably built by his son John, who bought the estate, and it has remained ever since in the hands of the Knight family, if we may count adoption as ranking in family inheritance. The move to Chawton was evidently some time in contemplation before actually taking place, for writing in December 1808, Jane says that they want to be settled at Chawton “in time for Henry to come to us for some shooting in October at least, or a little earlier, and Edward may visit us after taking his boys back to Winchester. Suppose we name the fourth of September.” Of the actual settling in at Chawton we have no details, for the next batch of letters begins in April 1811, and Jane, with her mother and sister, had been there about a year and a half. Chawton was her home for the rest of her short life, though she actually died at Winchester. At Chawton her three last novels were written, as will be recounted in detail. It is curious that the periods of her literary activity seem to have been synchronous with her residence in the country; at Steventon and at Chawton respectively she produced three novels; at Bath only a fragment, and at Southampton nothing at all.