ELIZABETH CRAVEN AND HER WORLD

Anna Countess Temple, circle of Thomas Hudson. Literary tastes and talents often run in families. Elizabeth Craven had an elder cousin who was also a poet, and whose works were published by Horace Walpole. She was Anna, Lady Temple, née Chambers, and her mother had been Lady Mary Berkeley, a daughter of the 2nd Earl of Berkeley.       Anna was born in 1707, the daughter of Thomas Chambers of Hanworth. She married Richard Grenville, Lord Temple. The Grenville family owned the estate at Stowe, in Buckinghamshire, celebrated for its splendid landscape design.     She does not seem to have been known as a Bluestocking or one of the circle of Mrs Elizabeth Montagu. But her friendship with Horace Walpole and his encouragement of her writing indicates that she must have been a cultivated woman.  In 1764  Walpole printed a volume of her poems at Strawberry Hill,  Poems by Anna Chamber Countess Temple,  and this is now available among t...

Rockley Manor.          The highlight of the year was the talk given in February 2022 by author Nicola Cornick to the Friends of Lydiard Park,  entitled "A Georgian Love Story" about the marriage of General the Hon. Frederick St. John and Arabella Craven, the youngest daughter of Elizabeth Craven. Many interesting details emerged about their eventful lives, including the fact that when they went to India they took their three sons with them, and nearly lost all three when the ship caught fire. On their return to England  they lived at Rockley Manor in Wiltshire, halfway between Lydiard Park and Ashdown House. The house survives (above).  Ms Cornick has used the manuscripts in the Lydiard Archives as her source, and we look forward to many more fascinating discoveries about the Cravens and St. Johns, two closely connected families with estates in the neighbouring counties of Berkshire and Wiltshire.      Elizabeth  Craven i...