Malvern <1>
Tuesday Aug. 14th
My Dear Mother
I got to Gloucester at midnight and proceeded at ½ past six this morning by a coach to Tewkesbury; the morning was remarkably fine and pleasant, quite suited for travelling – On leaving Gloucester there is a good view of the Malvern Hills with a pretty foreground – At Tewkesbury I procured a gig and arrived at Malvern before ten o’clock – I found Constance <2> very well – we have just been to the top of the hill, she on her donkey, & I walking beside, & we are returned in time for an early dinner at 2 o’clock – we had a good view from the summit, & saw with the help of a glass Worcester & Gloucester Cathedrals, Tewkesbury, Ledbury, the follies or Oblisks in Eastnor park at Croom Park, the Wrekin Hill near Wellington &c. &c. One of the most conspicuous objects however being a certain chimney about fifteen miles distant, certainly the tallest in creation as far as my researches go on that subject; thus are manufacturies invading the domain of the picturesque – Malvern has grown amazingly of late years, it is quite conspicuously seen from Tewkesbury 15 miles off; – Constance has taken a great liking to Malvern, & says the people at the Bellevue Hotel are very civil. She is going to set off at 8 tomorrow morning for Birmingham, thence by the ½ past 2 train which professes to arrive at Manchester by 7. Pray forward my letters to Newcastle on Tyne, post office. I hope you will ask my aunt for cuttings of some of the pretty things at Bowood, <3> John Humphries <4> has skill enough to raise them. And I want him to make cuttings of several things at Lacock, and when rooted, to plant them all together in one bed, or in a few places only, that I may be able to identify them when I return. As you are fond of box, I advise you to have cuttings planted of the broad leaved sort, & then you will have as many plants of it as you please. It strikes easily – I am so sorry to have missed Horatia & Mlle <5> owing to that unlucky trout fishing. I wish the fish had been at the bottom of the sea.
Your affte
Henry
I wish several cuttings of Lomicera … the Honeysuckle of Nice. It is against the wall near your Coccygria <sic>, and of Clematis florida
The Lady E. Feilding
Bowood
Calne
Notes:
1. Malvern, or Great Malvern, 9 mi SW of Worcestershire.
2. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
3. Bowood House, nr Calne, Wiltshire, 5 mi NE of Lacock: seat of the Marquess of Lansdowne.
4. John Humphries, gardener at Lacock Abbey in the early 1840’s.
5. Henrietta Horatia Maria Gaisford, née Feilding (1810–1851), WHFT’s half-sister, and Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].