Lulworth Villa
Babbicombe
Torquay 13th
My dear Henry,
I am glad you are pleased with the new Manufacture. By this very post the Manufacturer has sent me a few specimens of the White Paper, now first made, & which they hope still to improve upon. I enclose a sheet of it, & should suppose they will never succeed in making it Whiter, as Fir seems to me such a brown Material.<1> I should have thought that the fibres of the Fir, would be tougher than any other tree, but then Timber trees of value would not be to be had in such large quantities as they will require, if they really make money of the invention. It is commenced at Dorchester, & finished at a similar Manufactory at New castle. I have first sent off a specimen to Sir Charles,<2> as he is so much interested by it.
I quite forgot to ask you in my last, if you have any small Photograph of Lacock which you could be so very kind as to spare me? I have one of Moreton, & two which Mrs Strangways<3> has sent me of Melbury, the North front much better than the South, Which is crooked – & I should like very much to complete my set by dear Lacock, where once I spent so many happy weeks. If this is too much to ask, do not trouble; but you are the Fountain head for Photographs, only you may not have any to spare, or any but such as are too large or valuable to be given away.
I do not like this Climate, but am here for the rest of my days now, for the very good reason that I cannot move, & for the last 4 years have been quite helpless & confined to one room from my spine. I was ill enough before, & this has completed it. It is such a horribly windy place that one is never quiet, I suppose from being as it were between two seas, the Babbicombe coast on my east & the Torquay Harbour on my West. I am not now near enough the sea to please me, who love [sic] to look at it, but there are but few nice Homes that are small enough to suit the small fortune my Father left me, & those few, which I should much prefer for the view to my own which has no sea view, are so perched on the very top of the Hill or Cliffs, that it is too cold for me. I tried it when first I came, & the N. E. winds in that exposed situation, were more than I could well bear. The whole place now has been built & over built with great ungainly Homes, stuck close to each other, so that one stares in to the others window, till it is spoilt entirely, & no longer is aristocratic or pretty. As I do not like wind, & care little for cold, excepting cold winds, I do not appreciate this climate at all. Harriot<4> told me that Constance<5> was abroad, but I did not know where.
Your affte cousin
Louisa Chtte Frampton
Notes:
1. A manufacturer had started buying fir trees from Moreton in order to make paper - see Doc. No: 09288. As is the case in that letter, over time the samples enclosed have become separated from this letter.
2. Sir Charles Lemon (1784-13 Feb 1868), politician & scientist; WHFT's uncle.
3. Mrs Amelia Fox Strangways, née Marjoribanks (d 1886), widow of Hon John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803-1859).
4. Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886); WHFT's cousin & sister-in-law; married William Mundy, 1830.
5. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (30 Jan 1811 - 9 Sep 1880), m. WHFT 20 Dec 1832.