Whorlton
Tuesday April 17th
My dear Father.
I am very much obliged for the cheque which you sent to Mr Headlam <1> and with which I have payed for the poney, having not yet had an opportunity of paying for the other articles. I got ½ a crown back out of the poneys price. I am almost tired of waiting for real spring weather for though I did think at one time that it had come yet I it has continued coldish wet and disagreable. I think we have scarcely any trees of which it can be said with any propriety that they are coming out, however Woo Woodall <2> our botanist keeps a sharp lookout on them and has shewn me some flowers I didnt know, which grow along the banks of the river. Close to the waters edge there is are a good many plants of a Star of Bethlehem with a yellow flower of which flowers I have only seen 3 for the rats seem to like them and have eat up all the rest. Not very far from this there a grows a very queer thing with rather a pleasant smell which is Par parasytical Toothwort and in the same wood there is a good deal of v a kind of Daphne with flowers very like the purple-flowered kinds only green. Then there are two kinds of Hellebore one of which is the Fetid Hellebore. Of course I dont know but what these may be most of them common but I dont know that I ever saw them before. Woodall has an idea of an experiment to get a hybrid between the Fetid Hellebore and the Christmas Rose, the object being to combine the fl white flowers of the Christs Rose with the finer foliage of the Fetid Hellebore. I should like to know whether Wilkins <3> has sown some of the seed of the Musk Mallow which I left in his charge; he may perhaps have forgotten it.
The building of Mr Headlams house is progressing tolerably fast. They have some very heavy stones to raise for the windows which is done by an instrument they call a winch, very like a windlass. They take hold of the stone by a contrivance called a Lewis (I dont know how it is spelled). They make a mortice at the top of the stone in this shape [illustration] They then had have 2 peices of iron one in this shape [Illustration] with its lower end thicker than the upper one but yet narrow enough to go enter the opening o th of the mortice. To the upper end of this is piece of iron is attached a ring. when this iron is in the mortice it is wedged in by another pei straight piece, so that it cant possibly get out again [illustration] The rope is then fastened to the ring R and the stone may be lifted. I saw this used in lifting stone for the construction of the new railway bridge over the Tees and it seems a very much neater plan than the way the cranes at the canal quay at Lacock used to work with a pair of great nippers or tongs which used to bite hold of the sides of the stones so. [illustration]
This new building will make an addition of a good many rooms and as it is built on at the West End the part which figures so [badly] in the photograph I brought to Lacock, it will considerably improve the appearance. I was rather interested the other day by reading in the Times an account of the application of electro magnetism to the art of weaving. If one may judge from the statement there made it would seem to be a great improvement. I hope your engraving <4> is progressing to your satisfaction and that every body at home is quite well, and as I owe some letters please tell them that I have every intention of writing them.
Your affect son
Charles T.
Notes:
1. Rev Arthur William Headlam (1826–1909), clergyman and private tutor to Charles.
2. A fellow pupil at Whorlton.
3. George Wilkins (b. 1814), gardener at Lacock.
4. WHFT had invented his photoglyphic engraving in 1858. The patent Improvements in the Art of Engraving, (no. 875) was filed 21 April and finalised 14 October 1858.