TALBOT1702

[written on the same sheet as a note by Caroline - see ]

Laycock Abbey
19^th August

My Dear Henry

I have just received your Letter from Rheims ¹ & really think that between the bad roads & bad weather you would have been quite as well off in the Snails mead. I feel quite glad we have been keeping the house warm during such a damp season, & am sure we must have done great good. I find that at Castle Coombe ² they are equally damp & cannot get the walls to dry, enough to paper their rooms, & it is some satisfaction to hear that Lord Carnarvon ³ (who has had no architect) is so dissatisfied that he has pulled down what he did at Highclere & is doing it over again. M^r Scrope ⁴ told me yesterday if he was to build another house he would not undertake it without a Clerk of the Works again It is a prodigious consolation to hear of the mistakes of others.

Vale ⁵

Mons^r
Monsieur Henry Fox Talbot
Poste Restante
Genève
en Suisse