London
6 March 1830
My Dear Horatia
Dighton <1> is making another model, it will be ready in a week. There is to be a square tower containing an observatory, and all sorts of strange things. I don’t mean to widen the end of the Gallery next the Dining Room so Caroline’s <2> pannel will remain untouched. Asked Mr F <3> to speak to Strong <4> about employing labourers belonging to Lacock parish.
Bring me the Annual Peerage, <5> you will find it in the bookcase in my drawing room. Gather one flower from each of the Orchises, and from the Tulips, for me to see, and a spike of Hyacinthus Romanus or whatever else is come into blow. The orchis flowers will come fresh, if thrown into a phial of water. I have had Blore’s monumental remains beautifully bound in calf.
Bring all you can find of Martius’s Nova Genera <6> (not his Palms) They are, some on the library table, viz. 2 cahiers <7> which Wm <8> was looking at; some are in a large Portfolio which lies on a chest of drawers in the room within my drawing room & some I believe are in a chest of drawers in the same room. I want to have them bound: for as they are, they are of little use.–
Yours affly
Henry
Miss Horatia Feilding
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Notes:
1. Thomas Dibden Dighton (1799–1883), architect & model maker, London.
2. Caroline Augusta Edgcumbe, née Feilding, Lady Mt Edgcumbe (1808–1881); WHFT’s half-sister.
3. Rear Admiral Charles Feilding (1780–1837), Royal Navy; WHFT’s step-father.
4. 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.
5. Anne Eliza and Maria Innes, eds., The Annual Peerage of the British Empire for 1829 (London: 1827–1829, 4 vols.).
6. Dr Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794–1868), German botanist, Nova genera et species plantarum quas in itinere per Brasiliam annis MDCCCXVII–MDCCCXX (Monachii: 1824–1829, 4 vols.). His Palms is probably his best known work Historia Palmarum (1823–1850). [See Doc. No: 01890].
7. A writing book / a memorandum.
8. William Thomas Horner Fox Strangways, 4th Earl of Ilchester (1795–1865), botanist, art collector & diplomat.
9. Her poney - probably to Thomas Hayward (b. 1783), tenant farmer, Wick Farm, Lacock.