From Horace Darwin to Emma Darwin [1879–80]

Dear Mother

I will continue my account. At Lincoln we saw some interesting Roman ruins; they were near the street which was an old Roman road, and the floor of the building was 6 or 7 ft. I forget which below the present level of the street  I looked for worms but could see none. On Monday we went to Newark & took a dog cart over to Elston, when we got there we found Mr Thorp not at home, & the butler was in the village, the man who drove us said he thought he could find him which he soon did, & we found he did quite as well as Mr. Thorp; he showed us over the house & church beginning with the cellar, of which he was very proud, and got the gardener to show us the garden; he gave us lunch & wanted us to settle what wine we were to have, but we of course would not, so he brought up a bottle of some West Indian sherry, wh was very good. Just as we had done lunch Mr Thorp came in, and he was as the butler described him "A jolly red faced man weighing 16 stone", who evidently appreciated the good wine he had got in his cellar. We both thought the house and garden very charming  After lunch L took the photos & then we had to play a game of billiards, in a new room Mr Thorp had built; & then we had to go & look at his stables horses carriages, and we found it very hard work praising everything sufficiently, but I think we put it on pretty thick. There was a poney which was trotted up and down & shown off for a long time, we could not praise too much  It was so funny, how proud the gardener was of the flowers & grass, the butler of the wine and more than all the coachman of the horses & harness &c. We stayed to dinner, when the butler brought us what wine he liked, & he evidently thought us honoured guests for he gave us 34 port, besides beer, brandy two sorts of sherry & hock, & we had great difficulty in refusing most of it so often. From all this you will gather that Mr Thorp is not much of a gentleman. He is an old bachelor 79 years old & ruled with a rod of iron by his servants.

We slept that night at Neward and next morning went to Kerton Lindsey, where we went to get the keys of the church from the Parson who took us & shewed us over the church & showed us the early registers. He told us of a Mr. Howtell a solicitor who would be a likely man to know about the Darwins. We walked over to Cleatham, & sent our cards in to a Mr. Maw, the squire there. He lived in a new house, which we at first thought stood on the sight of the old house but we found we were mistaken afterwards. The train shakes too much. We found him a very old man he received us cordially, & we found he knew the name  he had bought the land from the people who had bought it from the Darwins  He told us where the Old Hall, as it is called, sood, & a cottage stands there now, part of which he thinks was part of the new part of the old Hall. Lenny is going to call there again, as Mr Maw thinks he can tell us something more. We went into the cottage & bought something, as it is small shop now and talked to the old lady who served us, & she by an odd chance knew somethin of the Elston Darwins, we told her that our great great great grandfather was born in that house. It used to be a log house as far as we could make out, prettily situated, with fish ponds near it, and a few old fruit trees. Lenny I think will find out more about it today. We then walked back to Kerton Linsey, & called on Mr. Howtell, who showed us a field, on which there is a yearly charge, of 3 gowns for 3 widows, called the Darwin charity, left by Mrs. Anne Darwin. We had tea in his house & then back to Retford where we slept & here I am in the train just past Durham  Will you write to me at 6. Q.A. as I shall be there on Friday.

Yours | H Darwin