ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

Dr Edward Jenner, from the portrait by William Smith that hangs in the Jenner Museum.  Dr Edward Jenner, the pioneering doctor who introduced vaccination to England in the 1780s, had a close connection with the Berkeley family, into which Elizabeth Craven was born. Jenner's father was the vicar of the parish of Berkeley in Gloucestershire which includes Berkeley Castle the ancestral home of the Earls of Berkeley. In her Memoirs, Elizabeth Craven describes how she nearly died of an illness in her late twenties, by fortunately Dr Edward Jenner was called, and his advice saved her life. "Jenner, since so famed, and whose illustrious services to mankind ought to be immortalized, was at that time there, and came to pay his last respects to one, as he imagined, at the point of death, and for whom he had the sincerest regard. He had the courage to inform Lord Craven that my case was totally mistaken, and that it was owing to such a mistake that all the singular disorders whic...

Since most public places in the UK are still not open because of the quarantine restrictions, try taking a virtual tour of some of the gorgeous places you would like to visit. Here are some pictures of Coombe Abbey, in Warwickshire, once the ancestral home of the Craven family. Elizabeth Craven spent a lot of time there while she was married to William, 6th Baron Craven. The house was owned by the Craven family until the 20th century, when it became a hotel. The house was built out of the remains of a mediaeval monastery, and as you approach the front entrance you see the oldest parts of the building. There are one or two Gothic style windows still remaining in the Tudor structure. This central courtyard combines Tudor and Jacobean features. It is on the site of the quadrangle of the original monastery, and some vestiges of this remain here and there, well covered in ivy.  On the Eastern side of the house, the architecture changes dramatically, morphing into a...