Laycock Abbey
Tuesday 11th October
My dear Henry
I do not wonder these eventful times <1> take you to London. I only entreat you will write to some of us every day while you are there, because the excitement & the only hearing once a day by the newspapers, is enough to put one in a fever. Before you come you must write & let us know, because Mrs G’s <2> servant sleeps in Fs’ room & another gîte must be found for him when you come: They stay till the 14th & we expect Lord V <3> – after many arrangements, and derangements, as soon as the bill or motion of Lord Ebrington <4> is disposed of, which may be tomorrow I suppose, & with John & Kerry <5> & all their domesticity we shall we [sic] quite full & more. If he comes it will be at an unlucky moment, because for 2 or 3 days we shall be obliged to dine in Your Library, while the Dining room Chimney is doing ce qui n’aura pas l’air si noble. <6> Bankes’s <7> Explanation is that the Ivy crept in at the joinings & heaved up the stones, then the smoke came out through instead of going up all at the top, & killed the Ivy, you may remember it has been dead these two years. Strong’s <8> is much the same in other words. The Stones are frittered away in layers, like gypsum. They are going to put up the old twisted chimney that lay in the Cloisters, so as it is all ready, it will be soon done & very pretty. Caroline <9> mentioned it in a letter she wrote you to Skipton, I don’t know whether you ever received it as you are so chary of your responses. Nothing can be so delightful as the Gallery I do nothing but walk up & down & look at it. I should be distracted if they were to come & break its plate glass windows as they have at Markeaton <10> (but I dare say non plate glass) but you are a Reformer & I understand popular in the environs therefore we need not be afraid here, never the less I am afraid, I have a horror of a concourse of people, & they have begun at Salisbury I hear. I conclude you will see Mr Methuen <11> in London & wish you would ask him for my satisfaction what troops are in Wiltshire.
You understand it is not the Stack but only the shaft that requires to be done. Mr Methuen lives 35 Upper Brook Street
Why was Lord Howe <12> allowed to vote against Ministers & keep his place?! [text missing] <13>, Ld Greys <14>
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville Street
London
Notes:
1. This refers to the Reform Act crisis. Agricultural unrest because of starvation wages fuelled the demand for Parliamentary reform.
2. Probably Mrs Gent. [See Doc. No: 02241].
3. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law.
4. Hugh Fortescue, Viscount Ebrington and 2nd Earl Fortescue (1783–1861), politician.
5. John George Charles Fox Strangways (1803–1859), MP, and William Thomas Fitzmaurice, Earl of Kerry (1811–1836), MP.
6. That which will not have so noble an appearance.
7. Probably George Banks, snr (1786–1864), stonemason & coalseller, Lacock.
8. Strong's identity has yet to be established. However, Awdry met Mr. Strong at Box [see Doc. No: 02006], the Wiltshire hamlet whose quarry originally provided Lacock Abbey with its stone. It is possible that Strong was there temporarily to select stone for the renovations at Lacock Abbey, but given the expansion of the area in the 19th c., perhaps Strong was resident there. The 1841 census for Box (the earliest one available) points to two possibilities. The first, James Strong (b. 1796), was a mason, but the Lacock mason, Charles Selman Banks (1805-1881) did most of the masonry at Lacock at this time. Thomas Strong (b. 1781) was a builder, and seems the more likely candidate.
9. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
10. Markeaton Hall, Derbyshire, NW of Derby: home of the Mundy family.
11. Paul Methuen, Baron Methuen (1779–1849), MP.
12. Lord Howe, Tory statesman.
13. Text obscured under seal.
14. Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey (1764–1845), statesman. He was subsequently the prime minister under whom the Parliamentary Reform Act of 1832 was passed.