Laycock Abbey
22d April
My Dear Henry
We shall be detained here several days longer, owing to the People at the Marble works not having calculated the time it would take to come by water, & having been also detained some time for Matilda <1> to go there, though I have never heard whether She was after all able to go to see them, as she has been much more ailing lately. She wrote me an éloge <2> of your brown & fair Children & it seems to have given her real pleasure to have had their visit. One of your cottages was burnt down last Thursday I think it was, on Bowden Hill, <3> inhabited by people of the name of Vennell. Horatia <4> knows them & has been to enquire into it, & so has Mr Awdry. The house is ensured, but are you obliged to rebuild it? – We have had bad weather all this week, continual snow & hail storms, no wonder everything is so backward. They have had Snow laying [sic] on the ground this week at Lanily <5>, & South Wales is generally so mild. I hope we shall find you in town & that you mean to stay there some time comfortably. Harriot <6> is to be in town soon, & very particularly wants to look at the Scrope & Grosvenor roll, it is not published & can only be had of the favoured few to whom it has been given, therefore I conclude you keep it locked up as such a precious morsel ought to be, if not tell me where I may find it. Write soon & answer this, because she will not be put off. Horatia says the Damascus seeds were sown the day Reid <7> got them. Ligusticum Botanicum was planted out in the Botanic Garden before you went away – Leontodon Leucanthum is coming into flower, & decidedly yellow. Ribes sanguineum in flower.
an open parcel came marked from the Horticultural which he thought better to sow than to send after you to waste its time which shews his sense & judgement
Tell Caroline <8> not to expect us in town tomorrow or next day, as she is now doing – Mention how Ld V. <9> is when you write
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
31. Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Matilda Feilding (1775-1849), WHFT's 'aunt' - sister of Charles Feilding, his stepfather.
2. Praise.
3. Bowden Hill, Wiltshire, 1 mi SE of Lacock.
4. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister.
5. Misspelling of Llanely, or Lanely, Glamorganshire: home of Lady Mary Cole and Mary Thereza Talbot.
6. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
7. John Reid, head gardener at Lacock Abbey.
8. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
9. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.