Abbotsford House Abbotsford House Abbotsford is a historic country house in the Scottish Borders, near Melrose, on the south bank of the River Tweed. It was formerly the residence of historical novelist and poet, Sir Walter Scott. It is a Category A Listed Building. The nucleus of the estate was a small farm of , called Cartleyhole, nicknamed Clarty (i.e., muddy) Hole, and was bought by Scott on the lapse of his lease (1811) of the neighbouring house of Ashestiel. He first built a small villa and named it Abbotsford, creating the name from a ford nearby where previously abbots of Melrose
The Little Sweep Iken Hall, a large rambling farmhouse on the banks of the river Alde, the home of Margery Spring Rice. The child characters were transplanted from a nearby country house, Great Glenham, which in the late eighteenth century had been the home of George Crabbe, the author of the poem "The Borough" which had formed the basis of Britten's 1945 masterpiece "Peter Grimes". Great Glemham House was (and is) the home of Lord Cranbrook, a personal friend of the composer's who was at that time Chairman of the Aldeburgh Festival. Britten and Crozier adopted the names and personas of his children