Regency parade through town for Austen Festival

A regency costume parade has walked through the streets of a town where Jane Austen is believed to have stopped for tea.

The promenading through the streets of Trowbridge, Wiltshire, to Parade House is part of the Jane Austen Festival, which is mostly based in Bath.

The Grade I listed house was built in 1720 and Trowbridge was a very wealthy town due to a thriving trade in cloth.

Carey Tesler, director of the house, said people attended "from all over the world", taking the journey from Bath to Trowbridge's railway station to then walk to the house.

Austen is thought to have stopped at the house for tea. It would have been on the route between Bath and her home in Hampshire.

Tesler explained it represents a time when "Trowbridge was the wealthiest town in the west of England. So everybody came to Trowbridge to buy their cloth".

"Even the Empress of Russia would send her envoys to buy her fabrics," she said.

Tesler said wealthy clothiers had impressive houses in the town - including Parade House, built by Robert Houlton.

Those parading in regency costume were treated to a cream tea, a theatrical performance and were greeted by the town crier and mayor.

The Mayor of Trowbridge, councillor Stewart Palmén, said it was "wonderful to see everybody looking so non-21st century" with some "very nice bonnets" and gentlemen with "quite a variety of hats".

He said the event "means a lot for Trowbridge" as its "reputation as a town is changing a great deal". He wants to change people's perspective of the town.

"We're looking to our history as a mill town producing fantastic fabrics and the clothiers that built all the listed building sin the centre of town. A lot of people don't know that history," added Palmén.

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