Millburn Tower <1>Edinburgh
Jan. 22
Profr Balfour
Dr Sir
I enclose a specimen of Bougainvillæa, from my sister’s <2> garden in the South of England –
Could you send me a dried flower of the new species of Clerodendron from the Old Calabar <3> which flowered recently in your botanic garden? I cultivate a very pretty scarlet sort in my stove <4> in Wiltshire which ripens its seeds regularly, and thus I raise a succession of young plants every year.
I remain Yours very truly
H. F. Talbot
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. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Calabar, on the Calabar River, in southeast Nigeria.
4. His hothouse.