Millburn Tower <1>
Tuesday evening April 29th
My dear Papa,
Many thanks for your letter received this morning. I am very glad that your engravings have been so satisfactorily hung up, for I was always afraid of some contretemps: either that they would not arrive in time or that you would find that they did not fill up the space assigned. I am sure you must be glad also to have it off your mind. What a pity that your hardest work happened in such a particularly unfavourable season, and not rather now, that we are enjoying such delightful weather. Today and yesterday have been particularly charming: – today a cloudless sky and hot sun, tempered by a soft westerly air – thermometer 66 all day – the highest it has yet reached. How one enjoys warmth and sunshine after so protracted a winter. This morning at half past eight I found Mamie <2> sitting basking on her terrace, and drinking a cup of tea al fresco! – The leaves are all bursting out, and if this weather continues, as I hope, you will find quite a different climate and country when you return.
Tilly <3> and party are to come back on the 7th – they are very loth to leave Speddoch <4> now it is looking so pretty. Sheriff Tait’s youngest daughter, Alice, was married yesterday to Captn Hare, a neighbour of ours, by her uncle the Bishop of London. <5> The Courant says he preached a beautiful sermon at St John’s <6> last Sunday, which, had we known of before hand, we might have gone to hear. He is off again now to be present at the opening of the great Exhibition. It will be a grand sight, but too great a crowd to be pleasant I think. The Queen <7> has delightful weather for her journey. I suppose she will pass our station early tomorrow morning. You perceive I am finishing this on Wednesday.
It is finer, hotter and greener than ever. At this moment (3 o’clock) the thermometer stands at 71.
Mama <8>thanks you for having executed her commission so quickly, and all the portraits you sent are very good and very interesting to possess, only I wish we had a still larger number.
I hope you will find Lacock looking very nice, and that you will bring us a good account of everything there.
Goodbye, dear Papa, love from all. Your affectionate daughter
Rosamond.
[envelope:]
H. F. Talbot Esqre.
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wiltshire
Notes:
1. Millburn Tower, Gogar, just west of Edinburgh; the Talbot family made it their northern home from June 1861 to November 1863. It is particularly important because WHFT conducted many of his photoglyphic engraving experiments there. The house had a rich history. Built for Sir Robert Liston (1742-1836), an 1805 design by Benjamin Latrobe for a round building was contemplated but in 1806 a small house was built to the design of William Atkinson (1773-1839), best known for Sir Walter Scott’s Abbotsford. The distinctive Gothic exterior was raised in 1815 and an additional extension built in 1821. Liston had been ambassador to the United States and maintained a warm Anglo-American relationship in the years 1796-1800. His wife, the botanist Henrietta Liston, née Marchant (1751-1828) designed a lavish American garden, sadly largely gone by the time the Talbots rented the house .
2. Amélina Petit De Billier, ‘Mamie’, ‘Amandier’ (1798–1876), governess and later close friend of the Talbot family [See Amélina's journal].
3. Matilda Caroline Gilchrist-Clark, ‘Tilly’, née Talbot (1839–1927), WHFT’s 3rd daughter.
4. Speddoch, Dumfriesshire, 10 mi NW of Dumfries: home of WHFT’s daughter Matilda.
5. Archdeacon Campbell Tait (d. 1882).
6. Large Episcopalian church at the junction of Lothian Road and Princes Street.
7. Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom (1837–1901), Empress of India (1876–1901).
8. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.