Lot Essay
The Hon. Eleanor Vera Gordon Boyle was a renowned Victorian artist, book illustrator and author. She was the wife of Richard Cavendish Boyle, younger son of the 8th Earl of Cork (1812-1886), rector of Marston Bigot in Somerset. They lived together at Marston House and commissioned the Gothic Schoolhouse near Lower Marston in 1857, then part of the estate. The Schoolhouse was built by the Bath architect Charles Edward Davis and later purchased in 1983 by Christopher Wood.