Southampton
Friday morng
My dear Henry
Our visit at Cowes was very pleasant – Aunt Harriot <1> was exceedingly hospitable as usual, & pressed us very much to stay another day – Yesterday was delightful – Ld V. Mr Mundy & Charlton <2> set sail in the Petrel at 8 o’clock to go to Portsmouth, & were 4 hours on their voyage of 12 miles – but they were very much interested by what they saw there – In the mean time Louisa <3> drove me in the gig to Carisbrooke Castle <4> – the situation is commanding & the approach & village near it very pretty & well wooded – The Gate is handsome & I took a very picturesque sketch of it – They shewed us the window of the room where Charles 1st <5> was confined & a very curious well three hundred feet deep with 90 feet of delicious water; the whole, except a few feet towards the top, being excavated in the live rock –
They poured some water down & the noise it produced passing through the air was very curious, long before we heard the splash at the bottom. – We dined with Aunt H. & returned here in the Petrel – We set off this morning for Lyndhurst & shall not stop any where so direct to Mt Edgcumbe, <6> where we hope to arrive Monday early –
Addio yr affte Sister
Caroline
[envelope:]
Henry Fox Talbot Esqr
31 Sackville St
London
Notes:
1. Lady Harriet Frampton, née Fox Strangways (d. 1844) .
2. Ernest Augustus Edgcumbe, Lord Valletort, 3rd Earl of Mt Edgcumbe (1797–1861), WHFT’s brother-in-law; William Mundy (1801-1877), politician, WHFT’s brother-in-law; and William Charlton Frampton (b. 1811), rector of Moreton, brother of Harriot Georgiana Mundy, née Frampton (1806-1886), WHFT’s cousin & sister-in-law.
3. Louisa Fitzmaurice, daughter of Lord and Lady Lansdowne.
4. Carisbrooke Castle, Isle of Wight. A Norman structure built on an 8th Century Saxon fort housing two medieval wells. King Charles I was held here as prisoner from 1647–1648.
5. Charles I (1625–1649), executed for treason.
6. Mt Edgecumbe, near Plymouth: seat of the Earl of Mt Edgcumbe.