AN urgent, large-scale funding campaign has been launched, in the bicentenary year of Austen’s death, to “reimagine and enhance” the manor house in Chawton, whose interior and gardens were once as familiar to Jane Austen as her own village home.

The aim is to raise £150,000 in 18 months to make up the shortfall in the day-to-day running costs of Chawton House after American mutli-millionaire Sandy Lerner ended her financial support.

The co-founder of Cisco Systems, Dr Lerner is said to have sunk some £20m of her fortune into renovating the Elizabethan manor house that once belonged to Jane’s brother, Edward Austen Knight, who inherited the property from childless relatives and was able to offer his mother and two sisters the nearby cottage on the estate.

Now Jane Austen’s House Museum, Jane would spend the most productive years of her literary life there. She regularly came and went along the road between her cottage and the ‘Great House’, describing dining there, walking there, and even having ‘dawdled away an hour very comfortably’ there in her letters.

In 1992, Dr Lerner saved the manor house from disrepair through purchasing the leasehold and embarking on a major restoration programme. It has since enjoyed a world-renowned reputation in academia as Chawton House Library, a research centre for early women’s writing, in collaboration with the University of Southampton and other institutions.

It has also developed a modest income as a visitor attraction, with increasing numbers of individuals and families coming to enjoy the house and grounds, alongside the Austen-related heirlooms and library.

The need for a renewed vision, securing Chawton House for the future, became critical in late 2016, following the cessation of generous annual funding by Dr Lerner, which made up 65 per cent of the organisation’s income. The charity now aims to launch a major capital programme to expand its facilities, enabling it to reach its full potential as a historic literary landmark, and to ensure its long-term financial sustainability.

The new appeal is being launched at a critical time when the world’s attention is focused on Hampshire. The bicentenary of Jane Austen’s death was commemorated on July 18 with the unveiling of the new £10 note at Winchester Cathedral, along with a host of other activities running under the Jane Austen 200 banner.

A Chawton House spokesman said: “The aim of the appeal is to create a cultural literary destination within the wider grounds of the Great House, offering larger and more extensive visitor facilities and providing an enhanced experience of the Chawton estate that was Jane Austen’s home throughout the final, productive years of her life.”

It is hoped the reimagining of Jane’s Great House into a much more widely recognised, more visited, commercially viable destination will help secure the unique collection of early women’s writing, and the associated cultural, academic, and literary events that, in addition to its Jane Austen connections, give the manor house its special character.

As such, Chawton House is seeking to apply for a large grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund for a capital building project to enhance its visitor experience, which could include the development of a purpose-built cafe and other enhanced facilities within the wider grounds.

Best-selling historical novelist Edward Rutherfurd, who has pledged £10,000 to the campaign, said: “There is nothing else like Chawton House.

“It’s a living and a growing treasure, a magical place that must be preserved for future generations – and enhanced into a world heritage destination.”

The charity’s patron, award-winning author Joanna Trollope, added: “It’s a fascinating Elizabethan house in itself, with some important Austen heirlooms, including books that we know Jane read. But it now also houses a unique collection of early writing by women – a library of which Jane herself would thoroughly approve. It would be wonderful if you could support the fundraising campaign to secure and enhance this remarkable place, for today, tomorrow and long into the future.”

As would be expected, both the Great House and the nearby Jane Austen’s House Museum, which enjoy a close working relationship, have become a hub of Austen-related activity during the bicentenary month, with the Jane Austen Society of the UK holding its annual meeting in the grounds of Chawton House Library, and the Jane Austen Society of North America making a pilgrimage to both locations.

Academic scholars from across the globe converged at the Great House for an international conference, which re-examined the career of Jane Austen alongside her French contemporary Germaine de Staël, who also died in 1817. An exhibition, ‘Fickle Fortunes’, looking at the differing peaks in popularity of these two writers, has just opened and will run until September 24.

In the meantime, reflecting peaks in fortune and with an eye on a secure future, the message from Chawton House Library is clear.

“What we need members of the public to help with right now is our day-to-day running costs while we work on these long-term plans.”

Further information about the appeal, including how to donate, can be found at janesgreathouse.org.