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
Octavia Jordan Perry Octavia Jordan Perry Octavia Jordan Perry (1895–1991) was an American writer. She was born 21 April 1895 in Orange County, North Carolina, where her father was a country doctor. While a young child, she moved with her family to Durham, North Carolina. In 1916 she graduated from Woman's College (now the University of North Carolina at Greensboro), and three years later married Charles W. Perry. In 1963, Perry published "My Head’s High for Proudness", a folk tale set in the North Carolina mountains and inspired by summers spent in Sparta, North Carolina. She published "The Indian Bracelet", a children's story,