A House by the River Newnham Grange to Darwin College- A History of the Site, Buildings and Former Inhabitants

 A House by the River: In 1884 Professor George Darwin, newly married to an American bride, was looking for a house in Cambridge. He bought Newnham Grange, and with the aid of a talented and sympathetic architect, J. J. Stevenson, altered the house and adjoining granaries to make an unusual and uniquely attractive family home.

Margaret Keynes, who was Sir George's younger daughter, gives in this account of the house in which she was born a fascinating and intricate history of the many transformations of a site which has been in constant use for the last 500 years, and this will deeply interest the topographer and all who know Cambridge. The book amplifies Period Piece and many who have been captivated by Gwen Raverat's masterpiece will be equally charmed by the unexpected sidelights offered by her sister. It is, in short, a happy blend of local history and family biography, which brings both the house and its inhabitants vividly before us. No less vivid is the personality of the author who died aged 84 in 1974, leaving this book all but finished: her many friends will delight in characteristic stories and turns of phrase which will recall her to them, as life-like as the people and the building which she describes in A House by the River.