In 1849, she left Norwich with her mother to live at Clifton, Bristol, where acquaintance with Dr. Addington Symonds gave them a passport to the society of the place.

This enormous production was stimulated by heavy losses in 1878, when the failure of the West of England bank not only swept away her husband's income and position, but involved him as a shareholder in certain liabilities.

[2] Her method was to pick a historic character or famous building and weave a story around it, her best selling books were Under Salisbury Spire, Penshurst Castle and Winchester Meads.

Canon Ainger, when advocating that a memorial, which ultimately took the form of a brass, with an inscription by him, should be placed in Bristol Cathedral, spoke of 'the high and pure quality of her literary work,' and declared that her stories 'have been the means of awakening and cultivating a taste for history and literature throughout the English-speaking world.

[3] The early years of her married life were spent at Wells, Exeter, and Gloucester; and Longfellow, in reference to the continual flitting from one cathedral town to another, called her 'Queen of Summer, temple-haunting Martlet.'