Great Maytham Hall December 2003 the Country Houses Association announced that it was closing down its residential business and selling the eight Grade I and II listed buildings it owned. The walled garden of Great Maytham Hall provided the inspiration for one of the most famous of all books for children, "The Secret Garden". Its author, Frances Hodgson Burnett, lived at Great Maytham Hall from 1898 to 1907, where she found the old walled garden dating from 1721 sadly overgrown and neglected. Aided by a robin, Burnett discovered the door hidden amongst the ivy, and began the restoration of the garden, which she
Frances Anne Edgeworth Edgeworthstown in 1813, James Hall, makes reference to her as a "successful" author, with a published novel, "What You Choose to Call it" or "The Good Wife". This attribution was repeated in 1884, but is not mentioned by the family or their papers. It is known that Edgeworth wrote a memoir of Maria Edgeworth, containing selected letters. Some of Edgeworth's letters are held by the National Library of Ireland, and in the Bodleian Library. The Edgeworths went on to have six children together: Frances Maria Edgeworth (1799 – 4 February 1848), Harriet Edgeworth (1801–1889), Sophia Edgeworth (1803–1836), Lucy Jane Edgeworth