Caroline Alice Elgar and he died when Alice was aged only 12. She was from a distinguished family: on her mother's side her grandfather was the Rev. Robert Napier Raikes, her great-grandfather Robert Raikes (1736–1811) was the founder of the Sunday school movement, and her uncle was British Indian Army General Robert Napier Raikes (1813–1909). As a girl she studied with the amateur geologist Rev W. S. Symonds and they and a group of her friends went fossil-hunting on the banks of the river Severn. She wrote the index to a book by him. She studied the piano with Ferdinand Kufferath in Brussels
Treberfydd year. The house is Grade I listed, being an "outstanding early Tudor Revival house ...with excellent detail inside and out, the interior retaining almost all its original fittings." It is also the earliest surviving major work by John Loughborough Pearson. The house was built for Robert Raikes (1818–1901), grandson of banker Robert Raikes (1765–1837). Robert Raikes was a prominent member of the Oxford-based Christian Tractarian movement, and moved his family into the area in order to promote his beliefs and assist in the development of the area. The house was designed by John Loughborough Pearson, a young architect who was