London.
Saturday.
Jan 13th /66
My dear Father.
I wrote yesterday to Mamma <1> and hope she has received the letter. I had several letters to acknowledge but did not remem remember to mention them. I had a long one from Monnie. <2> I have taken lodgings at 83 Ebury Street for a week a bedroom & sitting room at one pound. I am just in the neighbourhood of the Margin’s of Westminsters demolitions. You know of course that he is pulling down a great number of houses of which the <leaves?> have fallen in and is rebuilding them upon a grand scale. Some are to be Gothic by Street but I have only seen the drawings of them. I am sorry to see in the paper that the curious Old Elizabethan house of Crewe Hall has been totally destroyed by fire. It was I believe a notable example of the style and stood near Crewe Station on the London & North Western. Bagwell <3> lodged in the house I am in before he went to America and I believe he is coming there again. He has returned from America having enjoyed his Tour very much and is now in Ireland. The streets all this morning were miserable with half-thawed snow. Now the pavements are passable but I rashly walked through St James’ Park and got my boots wet through. I hope your weather in Edinburgh is pleasanter. I dislike nothing more than snow but I think it is worse in this country than anywhere else. It seems that there are disturbances going on in Spain. <4> What do you think of them?
With love to all –
Your affect son
Charles
Notes:
1. Constance Talbot, née Mundy (1811–1880), WHFT’s wife.
2. Rosamond Constance ‘Monie’ Talbot (1837–1906), artist & WHFT’s 2nd daughter.
3. Charles’s friend from Trinity College, Cambridge.
4. Probably a reference to Peru and Chile’s formal alliance against Spain (December 1865). Peru declared war on Spain in January 1866.