My dear Henry,
Please send me by return of Post a lock of your Hair & one of Horatias <1> to add to your Mothers <2> & mine in a locket – which I am going to give to Caroline. <3>
Our Drawing room 4 light lamp is now at Lacock, to try the effect of a suspension Lamp in the Gallery. will you make Strong <4> Carpenter bore the Hole for the Hook when the centre Ornament in the ceiling is to be put as he knows exactly where the Timber is to bore into.
The cholera does not spread beyond Sunderland but there it goes on steadily with its work of death not more than one in 6 escaping. I have bought one of the Hot air Baths which are very convenient & useful in many cases. –
Yr aly
C. F.
Saturday
W. H. F. Talbot
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
2. Lady Elisabeth Theresa Feilding, née Fox Strangways, first m Talbot (1773–1846), WHFT’s mother.
3. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
4. Strong's identity has yet to be established. However, Awdry met Mr. Strong at Box [see Doc. No: 02006], the Wiltshire hamlet whose quarry originally provided Lacock Abbey with its stone. It is possible that Strong was there temporarily to select stone for the renovations at Lacock Abbey, but given the expansion of the area in the 19th c., perhaps Strong was resident there. The 1841 census for Box (the earliest one available) points to two possibilities. The first, James Strong (b. 1796), was a mason, but the Lacock mason, Charles Selman Banks (1805-1881) did most of the masonry at Lacock at this time. Thomas Strong (b. 1781) was a builder, and seems the more likely candidate.