Sunday
My dear Henry
As you have had some difficulty in colouring the new stove at Lacock to match the old, it is worth your while to look at Mr Vivians, (Marino) <1> with that view – let alone the prospect, the house, or the great ingenuity with which it is fitted up – The foundation colour seems fixed, & I could see no signs of it striping – the imitation of lichens you may, or may not adopt; but when they have been rubbed, they produce no bad effect and in other parts the whole thing is good –
Yrs aff
CF
Merthyr Mawr <2>
Henry Talbot Esqr
Notes:
1. Marino was built in 1783 and bought by John Henry Vivian (1785–1855) in 1817. Located near Veranda (the home of Calvert Jones), it was converted by Vivian to the much larger neo-gothic Singleton Abbey.
2. Merthyr Mawr, Glamorgan, on River Ogwr.