Worley's World: Jane Austen Festival

Last weekend, the girls and I took off around 8:15 am and drove down to Louisville for our first ever Jane Austen Festival! A friend told us about it just 3 weeks prior. The weather was perfect; we finally had a slight break in the scorching summer – low 80s for temperatures and a cool breeze. Others we talked to at the festival said it was the coolest festival since they started having them 5 years ago.

The setting was Locus Grove, a historic home in Louisville that was built in 1790.

We did a self-guided tour of the house, although there were docents throughout who answered questions. While in the house, we met a lady who was demonstrating how to make bobbin lace. It was fascinating to watch her work and learn about how lace is made.

After touring the house, we stopped in the Visitors’ Center to see a friend who is a milliner and makes Regency-era hats to sell at historical festivals like this. Her hats were amazing – each one is unique - and she had sold all 15 of them by noon on the first day of the festival! Aren’t they beautiful?

I had planned to stop somewhere for lunch in Louisville, but we didn’t pass any restaurants from the exit ramp to the festival, and by then we were so excited to get there that we didn’t want to stop. I remembered there was a sandwich shop at the festival (the “Earl of Sandwich Shoppe” ;-) so we went there and got a scone, some gingerbread and a couple of chicken salad sandwiches to share while we watched a workshop called “Dressing Mr. Darcy”, which demonstrated all the layers of clothing a gentleman would wear.

After that was the much-anticipated Regency style show, which did not disappoint.

After this was a side-saddle demonstration. The speaker discussed the origins of side-saddle riding and the development of the saddle itself. We just loved watching her on the horse in her beautiful riding outfit!

After that, we watched another favorite, the Pistol Duel re-enactment. These men were informative and very funny. We learned that a man could demand a duel if he was called a “cheat”, a “coward” or a “blackguard”, which meant rascal. So, the main speaker explained that the night before, while they were playing cards, he accused another man of being a cheat. When that man didn’t hit him, he called him a coward, so he was challenged to the duel. :-D

One of things that was interesting to me was how many men were at the festival. I figured the women would outnumber the men, which they did, but there were lots more men there than I thought. And of those men, many of them – the majority – were in costume, too. Very surprising! Of course, this costume didn’t count:

Seeing all the visitors and festival hosts in their Regency costumes was so interesting. We saw a wide variety of costumes, from simple to very elaborate.

On the way out, we passed these young men, who were the same men who had performed the pistol duel re-enactment. When we asked a lady if she could take our picture with them, her response was “Capital!” :-)