Wray Castle Wray Castle. The house was built in 1840 for a retired [Liverpolitan] surgeon, James Dawson, who built it along with the neighbouring Wray Church using his wife's fortune. After Dawson's death in 1875 the estate was inherited by his fifteen year old nephew, Edward Preston Rawnsley. In 1877 Edward's cousin, Hardwicke Rawnsley, took up the appointment of vicar of Wray Church. To protect the countryside from damaging development, Hardwicke Rawnsley, building on an idea propounded by John Ruskin, conceived of a National Trust that could buy and preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation. The house
Fanny Talbot Quartus (Quarry), an aspiring artist. Of Talbot, Ruskin wrote: "She's a motherly, bright, black-eyed woman of fifty with a nice married son who is a superb chessplayer. She herself is a very good one, and it's her greatest indulgence to have a written game with me. She's an excellent nurse, and curious beyond any magpie that ever was, but always giving her spoons away instead of stealing them. Practically clever beyond most women; but if you answer one question she'll ask you six!" Talbot supported Canon Rawnsley, Octavia Hill and other public-minded citizens in the work of founding the National