Susan Edmonstone Ferrier Ferrier visited Walter Scott at Ashiestiel Farm and House on the banks of the River Tweed, near Clovenfords in the Scottish Borders, and again in 1829 and 1831 at his new house, Abbotsford. They enjoyed each other's company and he wrote of her: "This gifted personage besides having great talents has conversation the least exigeant of any author, female at least..., simple, full of humour, and exceedingly ready at repartee, and all this without the least affectation of the blue stocking." He mentioned her in the same sentence as Maria Edgeworth and Frances Burney in 1825. Ferrier's account of the
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