The Royal Connections of Benham Place, Berkshire

As you are passing through Berkshire on the London to Bath road, you may notice this rather imposing gateway. It is the entrance to Benham Place, sometimes called Benham Park, an elegant Georgian mansion.  
You might think that this gateway, with its double entrance lodges, is a little grand even for an aristocratic mansion. The archways suggest guardposts, as if it were a royal residence, and in fact the house was at once time exactly that.

The royal associations of Benham go back a long way. In 1086, the Domesday Book mentions Beneham as a manor in Berkshire held by one Wigar, who is "the King's thane". This meant that he was a noble with special privileges. Only the King had jurisdiction over him. 
In 1251, the manor was given by King Henry III to his young half-brother William de Valence, hence it became known as Benham Valence.

Tomb of William de Valence in Westminster Abbey

In 1548, the manor was given by Henry VIII  to Sir Walter Mildmay, who however preferred to exchange it for another one. Benham was subsequently granted by Queen Elizabeth to her Italian tutor, Giovanni Battista Castiglione (1516–1598), who got a post in her household when she came to the throne.

      His descendants sold it in 1630 to the Craven family. After a fire destroyed the Tudor manor house in 1774, the present house was built, for William 6th Baron Craven. He was the husband of a very unconventional wife, Elizabeth Craven, the poet and playwright.

Elizabeth Craven painted by Ozias Humphrey c.1780.

After Lord Craven died, his wife re-married to a German prince called the Margrave of Ansbach, and he bought the Benham estate so that she could live in her old home. This royal owner made few alterations to Benham, principally adding the imposing gateway and greatly enlarging the stables to accommodate his racing stud.
      There is still a Stud, the Benham Park stud, on the site today. But who was the Margrave, and how did Elizabeth Craven, who was an Englishwoman, happen to meet and marry him?

To find out more about Elizabeth Craven, her life and her writings, read  
Elizabeth Craven: Writer, Feminist and European by Julia Gasper

published by Vernon Press.

https://vernonpress.com/title?id=334

23 Jun 2017 - Elizabeth Craven's fascinating life was full of travel, love-affairs and scandals but this biography, the first to appear for a century, is the only one ...

http://www.berkshirehistory.com/articles/newbury_monarchs.html

https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1220643