A PEAL of bells rang out across Alton to mark the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen’s funeral.

The funeral took place in Winchester Cathedral on July 24, 1817, six days after her death in the town and churches in Hampshire were asked to honour the date with a peal of bells. Two churches in Alton answered the call: St Lawrence Church in Alton and All Saints Church at Deane.

Both churches would have been well known to Jane Austen, as her father was rector of the church in Deane and the one in Steventon, where she was born, and her brother Henry often preached at St Lawrence Church, along with her niece’s husband, Benjamin Lefroy, who lived at Wyards Farm.

In Alton the St Lawrence bell ringers rang a Quarter Peal of Cambridge Surprise Minor.