Two new Austen adaptations have put Regency England back on screen — a Sense and Sensibility film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, and Dolly Alderton's six-part Pride and Prejudice with Emma Corrin and Jack Lowden, arriving on Netflix in December. The good news for travellers: the real Austen country never went anywhere, and a handful of hotels now package it with private guides, chauffeurs and spa treatments.
Bath remains the obvious starting point. Austen lived there from 1801 to 1806 and the city features in both Persuasion and Northanger Abbey. The Assembly Rooms and the Pump Room are essential stops, and The Royal Crescent Hotel & Spa — 45 rooms across two Grade I-listed Georgian townhouses — currently sells a Sense & Sensibility Stay bundling dinner, breakfast, a two-hour Blue Badge guide tour and spa access.
For wilder scenery, the new Sense and Sensibility film heads to Dartmoor and Dorset. Bovey Castle sits inside the Dartmoor national park and is serving a themed afternoon tea (Dartmoor honey, lavender macarons, Devonshire scones, cocktails with local gin) until November 30. In Dorset, Kingston Maurward House and Parnham Park supplied the Dashwood family's grand home, lake and gardens — best explored slowly with a private driver from Summer Lodge in the village of Evershot.
Buckinghamshire's West Wycombe Park plays the Ferrars family home, and Cliveden House — Grade I-listed, with 376 acres of National Trust grounds — makes a suitably aristocratic base, with Blenheim Palace also appearing in the film.
Then there's the real thing: Jane Austen's House in Chawton, Hampshire, where the author spent her final eight years revising her major novels. The small museum, with her tiny writing table, pairs well with a stay at Four Seasons Hotel Hampshire, an 18th-century estate near Hook with 500 acres of parkland and an equestrian centre.
Pride and Prejudice fans should aim for Derbyshire. Chatsworth House famously stood in for Pemberley in the 2005 film, and The Devonshire Arms at Beeley lets you stay within the Chatsworth estate itself. Time a visit for the estate's summer Regency Festival, complete with carriage rides and Austen experts.
Two newer additions round out the map: Rye in Sussex, transformed into Meryton for the Netflix series but already period-drama-perfect with its cobbled lanes — base yourself at The Gallivant opposite Camber Beach, with Sussex vineyards nearby. And in London, Henry's Townhouse in Marylebone, the former home of Austen's brother Henry, is now a six-bedroom hotel with individually designed Regency-inspired rooms.
Whether you're a devoted Austen reader or just want an excuse for country houses, cream teas and moorland walks, this route delivers England at its most cinematic — with far better beds than any heroine in 1811 could have hoped for.
