Saturday 18 May 1850
Royal Hotel Bowness
My dear Papa,
We all arrived safely here yesterday, but it was impossible to write to you then, for the post leaves Bowness, at a quarter past Four.
We stopt at Birmingham at the Queen’s Hotel close to the Railway station, but there was such a noise all night that Mamma Mamie and Matilda did not sleep well. Rosamund <1> and I did not get so much noise, but still we did not sleep as well as usual. We all hope that you will not go to this Hotel when you come: besides there are so many people, that the attendants are a long time coming when you ring and procuring what you ask for, they told Mamma that they had their house full every night.
Birmingham was very smoky, we got there about seven oclock, and we left it at ten next morning, We passed such a number of manufacturing towns, till we got to Preston, and though we had to change several times the day before, we only changed at Preston, our the carriage we were in, wa There was such a bustle at Preston, we were only half an hour waiting; We saw the sea very plainly near Lancaster, and you don cannot think what a quantity of wall flowers there were at that station. From Lancaster to Windermere it was very [ill del] pretty and the trees here are nearly as much in leaf as at Lacock, although near Birmingham they were very bare
When we got to the end of the railway near Windermere Hotel we thought that we should like to lie nearer the lake, so we got into an omnibus and were conveyed to this Hotel which is also the post office.
It is so near the time the letters go, that though I have other things to say I am obliged to finish in a hurry
Your affectionate daughter
Ela.
Notes:
1. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (30 Jan 1811 - 9 Sep 1880), WHFT's wife; Amélina Petit de Billier, 'Mamie', 'Amandier' (1798-1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family; Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, née Talbot (25 Feb 1839-1927), 'Tilly', WHFT's 3rd daughter; Rosamond Constance Talbot (16 Mar 1837 - 7 May 1906, died & buried at San Remo, Italy); 'Monie', artist & WHFT's 2nd daughter.