Benham Park - the French Connection

What possible connection could there be between this house in France,

and Benham Park in Berkshire, the home of Elizabeth Craven, the Georgian feminist writer? 

Benham is in many ways the quintessential English country home. Designed by Henry Holland in neo-classical style with grounds landscaped by Lancelot "Capability" Brown, it is the epitome of Georgian British taste and elegance. Yet it does have an old, curious link to the other house in central France, whose name is the Abbaye de Couhé-Vérac.
                       
Chateau de Couhé-Vérac, Haute-Vienne, Aquitaine.

 As this picture shows, the French house is attached to the remains of a mediaeval church, and was in fact built on the site of an ancient Cistercian monastery, the Abbaye de Valence, ruined during the wars of religion. 
This abbey was the birthplace of William de Valence, half-brother of King Henry III of England, in the days when the Plantagenet kings were lords of Aquitaine. King Henry gave the English manor of Benham to his brother, hence it has ever since had the name Benham Valence.
     The French house is a simple one built in the eighteenth-century, and derives its charm from the miniature turrets that were added so that the owners could call it a "chateau".
      Elizabeth Craven herself had many French connections. She went to live in France after she separated from her first husband, and she wrote plays and poems in French as well as in English. Some of these have finally been translated into English after 200 years, by me.


To find out more about Elizabeth Craven, her extraordinary 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 ...



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