In 1818, Francis Douce’s sister-in-law, Maria, widow of Charles Luther Watson, married Christopher Salter, from West End House in Buckinghamshire. The Salter family had owned West End House in Stoke Poges since the early eighteenth-century, when it was let to Jonathan Rogers, who happened to be the uncle of Thomas Gray:
William Henshaw, Mr Gray, etching and drypoint, The British Museum.
Gray’s ‘Ode on a distant prospect of Eton College’ is said to refer to the view from a summer-house overlooking the Thames valley on the grounds of West End House:
Stoke Court (formerly West End House), Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire (photo: Jim Win).