In 1819 Mr. Thomas Woodville bought from Sir D. Fleming a house called Yewdale Grove at Yewdale Bridge. In 1821 Mr. Binns of Bristol built the Thwaite House, and let it in 1827 to Mr. William Beever, a Manchester merchant, who died four years later, leaving two sons and four daughters, whose memory is very closely associated with Coniston. John, the eldest son, was a sportsman and naturalist; the author of a little volume entitled _Practical Fly-fishing_, published in 1849, and republished 1893, a memoir of the author (now again out of print). The pond behind the Thwaite was made by him, and stocked with fish; once a year he used to catch every member of his water colony, and examine it to note its growth. The picturesque "Gothic" boat house, now the gondola house, was built for his use. One of his hobbies was the improvement of fishing-rods, and Mr. William Bell (afterwards J.P. of Hawes Bank, who died in 1896) remembered helping Mr. Beever in this and other carpentering, turning, carving, and mosaic works, and in the construction of the printing press used for his sister's little books. John Beever died in 1859, aged 64. His brother Henry was a Manchester lawyer, and died 1840. Of the four ladies of the Thwaite, Miss Anne Beever died in 1858, and is buried with her brothers at Hawkshead. Miss Margaret (d. 1874), Miss Mary (d. 1883), and Miss Susanna (d. 1893) are buried at Coniston; their graves are marked by white marble crosses close to Ruskin's. Indeed, though their local influence and studies, especially in botany (see, for example, Baxter's _British Flowering Plants_ and Baker's _Flora of the Lake District_, to which they contributed, and the Rev. W. Tuckwell's _Tongues in Trees and Sermons in Stones_, describing their home), give them a claim to remembrance, their name is most widely known through Miss Susanna Beever's popular _Frondes Agrestes, readings in "Modern Painters,"_ and through the correspondence of Ruskin with Miss Mary and Miss Susanna published as _Hortus Inclusus_. In his preface to the last he spoke of them as "at once sources and loadstones of all good to the village in which they had their home, and to all loving people who cared for the village and its vale and secluded lake, and whatever remained in them, or around, of the former peace, beauty, and pride of English Shepherd Land." The old Thwaite Cottage, below the house, was tenanted by the Gaskarths after the death of David Kirkby, Esq., the last of the former owners, in 1814; and then for many years it was the home of Miss Harriette S. Rigbye, daughter of Major E. W. Rigbye of Bank Ground, and an accomplished amateur of landscape painting. She died in 1894, aged 82, and is buried beside her friends the Beevers in Coniston Churchyard. The Thwaite Cottage was then let to Professor J. B. Cohen of the Leeds University, whose works on organic chemistry are well known.