JOHN CLAVERING WOOD, the young-yet-to-be-novelist, very likely met his grandfather’s close friend, John Freeman Milward Dovaston (1782-1854), poet, naturalist and barrister, who lived 13 miles north of Marche Hall at his estate “The Nursery”, West Felton, Oswestry.
More about John Dovaston will be available in A Shropshire Squire, a forthcoming collection of letters and a diary – meanwhile nothing remains of Dovaston’s beautiful estate. According to a local correspondent:
The Dovaston House was latterly known as Dovaston Court rather than the Nursery. I am sorry to report that it was demolished a few years ago. It had become very dilapidated but it was said to have been a very beautiful house full of really super furniture. The garden had become such a jungle that you could barely see it. The site is now covered with new homes.
(Rear view of “The Nursery”, courtesy of http://www.sueburton.co.uk)
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