Saturday 20th September 2025
In Pursuit of Jane Austen - minibus tour to Hampshire
7:45 (returns by 17:00)
Meet: Outside the Jane Austen Centre, 40 Gay Street BA1 2NT
All-day minibus tour to Hampshire tracing Jane's footsteps and life. First her birthplace Steventon, then Chawton where much of her writing took place. Visiting Winchester, King Alfred's capital of England and Jane's final resting place in the cathedral. Meander with guide Adge through the ancient streets, impressive Peninsula Barracks and castle ruins. An unforgettable and atmospheric tour.
For this event you will travel in our new for 2025 bigger 21st Century minibus, accompanied by your tour guide Adge Secker.
Tickets £100 (excludes entrance fees)
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A Guide to Regency Dress - with Hilary Davidson
10:00 (duration 1 hour)
Venue: Elwin Room, BRLSI, 16-18 Queen Square, BA1 2HN
Join Hilary Davidson, associate professor and chair of MA Fashion and Textile Studies at the Fashion Institute of Technology, New York as she presents her new book: A Guide to Regency Dress. Covering male and female Regency fashion, hairstyles, jewellery and cosmetics, and revealing never-before-published facts and images, from the author’s fifteen years of research of original sources. This talk will form a practical introduction to all things Regency dress.
Tickets £13
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A Very Private Public Breakfast
10:00 (duration 1hr 30mins)
Venue: Kinwarton, 3 Upper Camden Place, (part of) Camden Rd, BA1 5HX (20 mins walk)
Sample the delights of an 18th Century public breakfast just as Jane Austen did in Bath. Bread rolls, toasted fruit bread, cake, tea (Jane Austen blend) or coffee - all in the private dining room of a typical Regency Bath house. Breakfast is accompanied by a talk from Jane Tapley.
Tickets £18
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Jane Austen & Bath - walking tour
10:00 & 14:30 (duration 1hr 30mins)
Meet: Outside the Jane Austen Centre, 40 Gay Street, BA1 2NT
'Oh! Who could ever be tired of Bath?’ So said Jane Austen’s character Catherine Morland in Northanger Abbey, which along with her novel Persuasion is set in Bath. Through family links and having visited and lived in the city, Austen knew Bath very well indeed. Come and find out more on this walking tour led by Mr Knightley of The Jane Austen Centre.
Tickets £14
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Archery
10:30 (duration 1hr 30mins)
Venue: Brocks Outdoor Advertures, Kelston, Bath BA1 9AF (bus, taxi or car required to get to this venue)
Adventurous spirits, grasp your bow and arrow - prepare for a marvellous experience!
On arrival, you'll be welcomed by your host, a GB Archery qualified instructor, as you take in Kelston Roundhill's breath-taking views. They'll guide you through the woodland walk towards the archery range - where all the magic happens. Here, you will be shown everything you need to know about your bow and arrow, the rules on the range and safety demonstration. Once all bases are covered, it's time to show off your newly learned skills with plenty of Archery games!
Tickets £35
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Austen's Lost & Found - theatrical walking tour
11:30, 12 noon, 12:30, 13:00, 13:30 (duration 1 hour each)
Meet: At the top of Gravel Walk opposite No1 Royal Crescent, BA1 2LW
The Natural Theatre Company returns with their hilarious immersive walking tour show Lost & Found. Another lost Jane Austen novel has been unearthed in Bath, revealing more recognisable plotlines, familiar characters and just a little bit of nonsense. Immerse yourself in wooing, weeping and wagers as we wander around Bath, and watch this joyful story come to life around you!
Tickets £19
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Jane Austen’s Contradictory Characters - with John Mullan
11:30 (duration 1hr 30mins)
Venue: Elwin Room, BRLSI, 16-18 Queen Square, BA1 2HN
Austen’s characters come to life partly because of their delicious - often absurd - inconsistencies. This talk will look at some of the ways that they entertainingly contradict themselves. It will reveal how the novels’ heroines, as well as their comic characters, come, like Marianne in Sense and Sensibility, ’to counteract their favourite maxims’.
Tickets £16
Tickets not yet on saleGossip in Jane Austen - with John Mullan
14:00 (duration 1hr 30mins)
Venue: Elwin Room, BRLSI, 16-18 Queen Square, BA1 2HN
In Jane Austen’s novels, gossip swirls around the characters. We will see how gossip is the life-blood of the small communities in which her heroines live, even if they sometimes do not perceive it. Sometimes, in fact, it shapes the very plots of the novels. Unlike Jane Austen’s Emma, we must learn to listen to the gossip.
Tickets £16
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Rummaging through the Reticule
16:00 (duration 1hr 30mins)
Venue: Kinwarton, 3 Upper Camden Place, (part of) Camden Rd, BA1 5HX (20 mins walk)
What did Jane and her characters keep in their reticules? All will be revealed when the contents of this C18th handbag are spilt in the privacy of a Regency drawing room. Jane Tapley's talk is followed by refreshments, a traditional cream tea - scones, jam and cream and, of course, tea.
Tickets £18
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Emma
19:30 (duration 2 hours)
Venue: Theatre Royal, Saw Cl, Bath BA1 1ET
The beautiful, high-spirited Emma Woodhouse is determined that she will never marry but loves to meddle in her friends’ and neighbours’ relationships. When her confidante and former governess, Miss Taylor weds her fiancé Mr Weston, Emma, having introduced the couple, takes credit for the marriage and decides that a future in matchmaking lies ahead of her.
So begins a comic journey through the lives and loves of Emma’s friends and neighbours, embracing the burgeoning Regency social scene of Bath and Weymouth. But as the romantic web she weaves amongst her friends becomes ever more entangled, will Emma herself get swept up in true love’s wake…?
Jane Austen’s enduring novel is filled with memorable characters - the dashing Mr Knightley, Emma’s friends Jane Fairfax and Harriet Smith, the mercenary Reverend Elton and his delightfully pretentious wife Augusta. This new 250th anniversary stage production is adapted by Ryan Craig, whose recent works includes the world premiere of Charlotte and Theodore in the Ustinov Studio and 1984 in the Main House.
*This production of Emma will be running over the whole course of the Jane Austen Festival, from the 11th to 20th September 2025, but the Jane Austen Festival will be offering a whole host of other evening events throughout the rest of the week, so we are encouraging our Festival visitors to attend the final Saturday 20th evening performance of this wonderful production of Emma to end the 2025 Jane Austen Festival altogether.
Tickets £13 - £50
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