Dear Sir,
Altho your readings & partialities do not lead you to subjects of Topography & Archæology, you cannot be wholly indifferent to these branches of literature, as connected with your own interesting home – In the Auto-Biography, which I am writing & printing, & which will extend to two goodly sized 8o vols – I shall have occasion to advert to Lacock, & my early communication with it at the end of the last & beginning of the present century: & am desirous of knowing if you have made any alterations in the buildings since you came into possession: – also in the church – &c. – if there be any errors in my own, [illegible deletion] or in Bocoles’s & Nichols’s Accounts?
Is the seat of the Montague’s, at Lackham remaining? – if so in whose possession? – Where was James Montague buried? – Any information from you on these, or other local subjects will oblige & gratify.
Yrs very truly
J Britton Dec 7 /53
Barton Eq
Burton Crest
London
PS I presume you are aware that my Wiltshire Collections of Books, M. S. S. Drawings, Prints, Models &c are deposited at Devizes [illegible insertion] for the Wiltshire Archæological &c Society –
H. Fox Talbot Esq.
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esq
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
-Wilts-
Greta Bank
Keswick
Cumberland