WCP165

[1]¹

Parkstone, Dorset.

January 25th. 1901²

My dear Will

I only write a few lines to report progress. Percy Curtis has been on the ground for a week has brought timber & nails & has put up a shop 20’ X 16’ with 4 windows made of my small glass garden frames. He will put a carpenter’s bench at one end. The other end is strongly floored to carry cement, the front part of this end being partitioned off to form an office & private luncheon-room &c. with a window & door with lock. It will also have a small iron stove to make tea &c. when [2] we want it & be very snug. [Sketch of shop is given to the left of the next sentence] It is situated on the bank just to the right of the road as it comes up to the house, so as leave room to get up to the house when the scaffolds &c. are up.

Next week he will accurately mark out the foundations, & set two labourers excavating, & put up the Carpenter’s bench &c. Then cart up sifted stones from gravel-pit for concrete foundations for which I have 50 cubic yards ready.

Mr. Donkin says that he has the plans all ready, & he is making tracings to send to Mr. Barnes. Then I hear they must be passed by the building Committee & the foundations inspected. The water [3] mains are now laid along the main road, and a trench dug along the proposed new road nearly to the back of our ground, so we may expect water laid on at end of next week, I hope.

I am sending you now your "Kim" & the Anglo-Saxon book. The latter I have read through, & though the historical parts are here & there dry, as a whole it is wonderfully written & very interesting, giving a good idea of the awful conditions of our British Ancestors during the four or five centuries of Saxon invasion, destruction, & massacre!

"Kim" is very good, but weak as a story & with a lame conclusion. It wants to be continued as it stops just as you expect the most interesting [4] part to be coming. His descriptions of Indian manners and life are admirable, & there are many good & original characters.

Do not forget the Acetylene, the Well-fireplace, & the fire-brick parts of it.

I have ordered a Greenhouse of Cooper, and as soon as we get bricks, lime, sand, and water, shall build the walls and get it up, as it will be very useful for a warm house to rest in— & to raise seeds &c. I have also a plan for having the store under the house to warm my bedroom & the house generally, as well as the Greenhouse! That will I think be A.1!!

Your affect[iona]^te. Pa | A. R. Wallace [signature]