Mount Edgcumbe <1>
Devonport
March 30th 1862
My dear Henry
I wrote to Constance <2> from Chippenham where we slept 2 nights, going home next day by the Express which passes Chippenham at 12. 40 11. 40. We were very comfortable at the Angel a nice old-fashioned inn, totally unlike in style to the new Railway Architecture. I went upstairs to look at the old Assembly room, where we used to have such merry balls in old times – when Mr Moore & Mr Bowles <3> were flourishing. I know it is very wrong but I feel now as if I only cared for what is past & gone – alas! never to return.
I know it is wrong – but my sympathies are so much with the past that I cannot help it – & you are almost the only one who can enter into these feelings – & now that the time is approaching for leaving this my own loved home for during so many happy years, I feel more heart-sore than you can imagine – tho’ I am going to another so near, & that he was so fond of too.
I did not intend however to attrister <4> you when I began this letter – so I will tell you that we saw all your flowers at Laycock, & Wilkins <5> was exceedingly kind & obliging – so was Banks. <6> I begged Flora <7> to send you a specimen of a creeper from the Winter Villa, <8> the day I went to Town & had not time to write. I hope you received it. Wilkins shewed me one something like it, only with smaller leaves, & I think not an evergreen, which our’s [sic] is.
There was snow on the ground – so that of course the place could not look in beauty – but it was extremely nice, tidy & soigné, <9> inside & out.
I also visited the Church where great alterations have been made – some of them are very good, & they want you to open a plaistered-up Arch behind the shelter of which, Mr Paley <10> used to put on his gown, for want of a Vestry – Now there is a vestry, the filing up of the Arch is of no use. It is similar to the 2 arches in front of Sir W. Sherrington’s <11> Tomb, & is very handsome. I wonder why the pulpit has been moved close up to your pew? or what object was gained by removing moving it from one side to another? They have made a new one – carved wood from Devizes on a stone pedestal worked at Box.
In the kitchen at the Abbey there are threatenings of some mischief in the front of the chimney – It is like an arch thus [illustration]
resting upon two brackets which are, altho’ of stone, so old, that they are literally crumbling away – & there is great danger of the front of chimney [sic] coming down, & perhaps part of the wall.
Banks shewed me this – & I took upon me to tell him to shore it up till you come home – when you would no doubt give orders concerning it. I have not drawn it correctly – but that don’t [sic] signify. I hope Constance received my letter from Chippenham. They said at Laycock, that they rather expected you soon – Is it so? Ernestine <12> sends you her love. I did not take the house in Rutland Gate <13> – it was too squeezy & too far off. Val <14> is now in London house hunting for himself.
You have heard Ilted Nicholl <15> is going to be married to the youngest of Captn Jerningham’s <16> daughters? She is very pretty – of an uncommon style of beauty – rather foreign I think.
I believe they are to be married on the 30th of April, as on the 1st May Captn Jerningham gives up his Command of the “Cambridge” Gunnery Ship – & his sailors want to have a garland at the mast head – the signal for a Wedding. Jane Nicholl <17> is at Torquay – & Miss J. is there now, making acquaintance with her belle-mère. <18>
Johnny Nicholl <19> is studying musketry, (being a Volunteer) at Hythe – where my Charlie <20> is doing the same. Charlie is there for ten weeks – It is excessively dull work; & it was bitter cold, out on the sands “judging distances” – but he is qualifying himself by this drudgery (quite useless I believe, in reality) to be Adjutant. There are so many new studies & examinations required now-a-days – that every profession becomes quite a drudgery, even in the higher grades – & the amount of head-work & writing required from the Captain of a man of War, would have made Nelson <21> & his brother Heroes open their eyes with astonishment, could they have seen it – & yet they got on very well without it.
Please give my love to all your ladies <22> –
& believe me yr affte Sister Caroline
Notes:
1. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.
2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
3. Thomas Moore (1780–1852), Irish poet and Rev William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850), Wiltshire poet & antiquary.
4. Sadden.
5. George Wilkins (b. 1814), gardener at Lacock.
6. Probably George Banks, snr (1786–1864), stonemason & coalseller, Lacock.
7. Caroline's husband's niece through his sister, Lady Caroline Sophia Edgcumbe (d. 10 April 1824), who was the first wife of Reginald George Macdonald (d. 1873): The Honorable Flora Isabella Clementina (1822-1899) was Maid of Honor and later Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria.
8. Winter Villa, near Plymouth: estate of the Earls of Mt Edgcumbe.
9. Well finished, carefully done.
10. Probably Rev James Paley (1790–1863), Vicar at Lacock.
11. Sir William Sherington ( ca.1495–1553); in 1540 he bought Lacock Abbey for £783, and in 1546 became vice treasurer of the mint at Bristol.
12. Ernestine Emma Horatia Edgcumbe (1843-1925), WHFT’s niece.
13. See Doc. No: 08530.
14. William Henry Edgcumbe, ‘Val’, 4th Earl Mt Edgcumbe (1832–1917), JP & Ld Steward of the Royal Household; WHFT’s nephew ‘Bimbo’.
15. Iltyd Thomas Mansel Nicholl (1828–1885), son of Jane Harriet Nicholl.
16. Cecilia Mary Jerningham (d. 1879), daughter of Captain Arthur William Jerningham (1807–1889).
17. Jane Harriot Nicholl, née Talbot (1796–1874).
18. Mother-in-law.
19. John Cole Nicholl (b. 1832).
20. Charles Earnest Edgcumbe (1838–1915), JP, WHFT’s nephew.
21. Horatio Nelson, Viscount Nelson (1758–1805), vice-admiral.
22. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter, Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter, Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal ], is also usually included, by Caroline, in this fold.