Knutsford is a small English town where Elizabeth Gaskell was raised by her aunt, Mrs. Lumb, and on which her fictional village of Cranford was based. Significant locations to Cranford in Knutsford include the Angel Inn where Lord Maulever stayed while visiting Captain Brown, Jackson's General Store (which appears in Cranford as Johnson's) where Miss Matty realizes she is destitute after the bank failure, The Royal George where the Cranford ladies watched Signor Brunoni perform his magic, and Hollingford House on which the home of the Misses Jenkyns was based. Additionally, Brook House in Knutsford was the residence of Lady Jane Stanley during Gaskell's girlhood; Lady Jane is assumed to be not only the prototype for the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson of Cranford, but for Lady Ludlow of Gaskell's My Lady Ludlow herself. A clickable map of Knutsford with locations significant to Gaskell's works of fiction can be found here. After her death on November 12, 1865, Elizabeth Gaskell was buried in the graveyard of Brook Street Chapel in Knutsford, pictured below.
