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Document number: 1743
Date: 22 Nov 1828
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: TALBOT Mary Thereza
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number historic: LA28-097
Last updated: 1st September 2003

Trengwainton <1>

Novr 22d

My dear Henry

I hope you will some time take a run down to the Lands End, we have been delighted with all we have seen here but I prefer the Lands End to every thing. The Cliffs are beautiful & the rocks in the Sea are such curious shapes and make the Sea dash about so beautifully I was enchanted. the Long Ships light house is situated on a little rock in the Sea & tho’ not far from shore people have not been able to come on shore for months at a time, fortunately they had a good supply of provisions & oil for the Lamp too. We Stood on the last bits of Land & looked down a perpendicular rock into the Sea, where any one who was tired of their life might get rid of it, with even more certainty than out of St Michaels chair! <2> We afterwards went to the Logan rock <3> which is situated in a curious spot the Granite rocks are tumbled about in such strange confusion it is a very wild scene & as the wind was extremely high the Sea was white with foam, we looked down at it on both sides, far below our feet & yet the Spray sometimes made us fancy it was raining. – Yesterday we went to Botalac mine, <4> it is an extraordinary looking scene, the Steam engine is placed in a crevice in the rock & looks odd enough but in spite of the fashion of admiring this place because it looks foreign & has these odd buildings I cannot help preferring, Nature only, much more; houses make a variety but if there were none so much the better to please me. The Cliffs are very fine and the place is very wild. both yesterday & the day before we went over a g<reat?> <5> part of your country of Trewon’tgrow. <6> I assure you, Bodmin Moor cannot be more desolate but we were amply repaid in the end. – We return to Carclew <7> today & tho’ our visit here has been very agreeable I am glad enough to go back again to a place where one feels more at home besides wishing to be with Sir Charles, <8> he wrote Sir C. <9> word he was better <10> which I am very glad of My kind love to all. I am writing before breakfast & have seen nobody but I am sure I ought to send every body’s love to every body. –

Your affate coz

Mary –

There are eight miss Prices (3 are little) Mr Charles & Mr John Price are at home too & I never saw a more handsome family there is not a plain one amongst them (I believe they have 5 more brothers) but I only speak of those here.

The view of Mounts bay & the Mount <11> from hence is very fine they have no other view at all.–

Penryn Novr twenty three 1828 Chrisr Cole
H. Fox Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham


Notes:

1. Two miles northwest of Penzance, Cornwall.

2. Probably on the precipitous St Michael’s Mount.

3. Off Porthcurno, southeast of Land’s End.

4. Botallack, on the west coast of Cornwall, northwest of St Just. Tin and copper were mined there for centuries.

5. Text obscured under seal.

6. WHFT’s youthful wordplay on the Cornish placename element; ‘tre’ meaning hamlet, settlement. [See Doc. No: 00105].

7. Carclew, Cornwall, 3 mi N of Penryn: seat of Sir Charles Lemon.

8. Sir Charles Lemon (1784–1868), politician & scientist; WHFT’s uncle.

9. Sir Christopher Cole (1770–1836), Captain, MP & naval officer.

10. Following the deaths, in quick succession, of his two children and his wife.

11. St Michael’s Mount.

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