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Gothic Season 2024
Captivity
Summer is ending, the nights are closing in and the air is cooling down. The pumpkins are full in the Gardens and the leaves are turning orange. Beware as Gothic Season Approaches… and this year’s theme is Captivity!
Back by popular demand, our Gothic Season opens Wednesday 16th October to Sunday 3rd November.
See the House decorated in the run-up to Halloween, with monsters lurking around every corner.
Two new displays celebrate the darker side of our collection. In the Long Gallery, Gothic Captivity introduces the unfortunate characters imprisoned in menacing monasteries and crumbling castles, thrilling scenes fresh from the minds of eighteenth-century Gothic novelists. You will find canonical Gothic novels alongside their popular chapbook imitations, exploring the female-authored villains who froze the blood of their readers.
In the Library, Gothic Creatures takes a look back at some of the terrifying creations of eighteenth-century Gothic: creatures cobbled together from corpses, the first English vampires, and a monstrous mermaid.
What’s On: Gothic Season
Gothic Supper & Ghostly Tales
Friday 18th October
7-9.30pm
An evening of Gothic Gastronomy, rounded off with a Ghostly Tale to freeze the blood… Enjoy a specially-created three-course meal in the shadowy corners of our atmospheric old kitchen. As the night deepens, gather by the fire in the Great Hall and lose yourself in a new ghost story, ‘The Volunteer’, performed by Nigel Worsfold.
Tickets: £50pp including a Gothic cocktail/mocktail on arrival. Wine and soft drinks available to purchase separately.
Halloween Half Term Kids’ Trails: Villains, Lost Letters, & a Cauldron Hunt
Saturday 19th October 2024 to Sunday 3rd November
During Halloween Half Term, explore the House and Gardens with brand new kids’ trails. Through the House, there are villains around every corner. Spot the Queen of Hearts and the Bride of Frankenstein, along with witches, spiders and poison apples. For those who like a mystery, follow our Lost Letters trail and work out the clues to find out what happened to the doomed author. Or delve into the Ghoulish Gardens, find all the cauldrons, and answer the questions correctly for a prize.
Gothic House Tour
Saturday 19th October
6.30-8.30pm
Are you brave enough to visit Chawton House after dark? Join us for a night to freeze the blood as we step into the world of Gothic literature, where innocent heroines are held captive in mouldering castles by terrifying villains, and the ingenious women writers who breathed life into them await your presence. Enjoy the atmospheric surroundings of Chawton House, and learn the secrets of the house, the portraits, and the books within. Be on the lookout for ghostly apparitions and veiled mysteries as we shine our lanterns into the darkness.
Arrival: 6:30, tour starts at 7:00pm
£15 (includes a Gothic cocktail/mocktail on arrival)
Moonlight Wilderness Walk
Tuesday 22nd October
6-7.30pm
Join one of our knowledgeable guides on a tour of the grounds and discover more about Chawton House’s eerie history. Don’t forget to look out for the creatures that only emerge in the darkness of night. Bring a torch and wrap up warm – things are going to get dark and spooky…
Arrival at 6pm for 6.30pm tour
Tickets: £15 (includes a hot drink in the Old Kitchen Tearoom before the tour).
Online talk: Professor Jerrold Hogle, Mary Robinsons’s Gothic
Monday 28th October
8-9pm GMT
Join us for the second digital event exploring the life and work of Mary Robinson. This month, it ties into our Gothic programme, focusing on Robinson as a Gothic writer.
In this talk, Professor Jerrold Hogle discusses Robinson’s use of the Gothic from 1792 to 1800, where she wrote in a mode that she knew would “sell” but where she also articulated several of the conflicts among beliefs in the Western world of the 1790s, including unresolved quandaries about class, race, gender roles, and male dominance in human relationships.
Tickets: £6
Gothic House Tour
Monday 28th October
8-9pm GMT
Are you brave enough to visit Chawton House after dark? Join us for a night to freeze the blood as we step into the world of Gothic literature, where innocent heroines are held captive in mouldering castles by terrifying villains, and the ingenious women writers who breathed life into them await your presence. Enjoy the atmospheric surroundings of Chawton House, and learn the secrets of the house, the portraits, and the books within. Be on the lookout for ghostly apparitions and veiled mysteries as we shine our lanterns into the darkness.
Arrival: 6:30, tour starts at 7:00pm
£15 (includes a Gothic cocktail/mocktail on arrival)
Gothic Supper & Ghostly Tales * SOLD OUT*
Thursday 31st October
7-9.30pm
An evening of Gothic Gastronomy, rounded off with a Ghostly Tale to freeze the blood… Enjoy a specially-created three-course meal in the shadowy corners of our atmospheric old kitchen. As the night deepens, gather by the fire in the Great Hall and lose yourself in a new ghost story, ‘The Volunteer’, performed by Nigel Worsfold.
Tickets: £50pp including a Gothic cocktail/mocktail on arrival. Wine and soft drinks available to purchase separately.