Laycock Abbey
2d April
My Dear Henry
I am delighted at the idea of your coming here before we go. Pray do – I shall be so disappointed if you do not. next Wednesday I shall hear from Caroline <1> what day Horatia’s <2> cold will be well enough to set out, & will write to you by that post, that you may meet her here. Wright will go down to escort her back I guess about the end of the week. I hope you will come & see my Herculean labours, certainly if I had lived in the time of the Ptolemy’s I should have built a Pyramid. One of them is transplanting some fine young Oaks given me from Bowood <3> eight years ago, they were planted too near together (a common error) & were hurting one another, they are grown so large that they cannot be moved without a ball of earth, & each takes 3 hours with digging the holes &c and five men to lift (the gardener included) tho’ they are only carried a few yards. They will be noble trees by the time Ela <4> is married. Oaks if possible should never be moved, Mr Frampton <5> says they take three years to recover a removal because of the tap root. The last Snow did a great deal of damage among the Evergreens, it broke down entirely the cedar I planted 40 years ago, & which I had a regard for. It brought down a great mass of Ivy from the Tower, which discovered part of a corbel, & upon pursuing the hint we found a little corbelled window, & afterwards upon taking down more we discovered two very picturesque windows, entirely filled (between the iron bars) with Bat’s nests. you cannot think how finely the Tower stands out now, it is really beautiful. I do not mind cutting away Ivy because if you do not like it, it grows again so very soon. Bankes <6> has never appeared since the Influenza & is supposed to be dying as he grows worse & worse. Mr F. <7> desired his sons a month ago to make an estimate of the Hall st[eps] <8> with the help of the Father but they have never d[one so.] They are mauvais sujets<9> & have got into a scrape with [the] Police Man. a Mason who lives at Lowdon (somewhere near Draycote)<10> recommended by Mr Awdry has been to measure the Steps & make an estimate, he is willing to sign a contract to do them lastingly for £40 using as many of the old stones as are not broke [sic] & furnishing all the rest &c &c The last frosts & Snow have not improved them, as you may imagine. If they are done while you are in the House next Summer you will not have egress or ingress, which will be awkward. If you decide on this Mr F. will return from London to see it done. Answer this one way or other The Cloister door was finished yesterday. If you had seen all the Snow Storms I have been out in (& all the rhumatisms [sic] I might have caught) watching the filling up of that yawning gulph! which is not above half finished yet. The Ivy was obliged to be taken off the steps for the estimate, & they are in a worse condition than I thought, at any rate it must have come down when they are rebuilt
all the people who have examined the steps concur in opinion that Ivy is as much the cause of your now h[aving] this money to lay out as time
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
65. Harley Street
London
Notes:
1. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
2. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.
4. Ela Theresa Talbot (1835–1893), WHFT’s 1st daughter.
5. Probably James Frampton (1769–1855), High Sheriff.
6. Probably George Banks, snr (1786–1864), stonemason & coalseller, Lacock.
7. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
8. Text obscured by seal.
9. A bad lot.
10. Lowdon, west of Chippenham. Draycot House and Park, Draycot Cerne, near Chippenham, Wiltshire.