WCP172

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Dec^r. 1st 1901

My dear Will¹

Your P. card arrived an hour after the Architect had been and gone. Almost all your criticisms I had however already made and they have been adopted in one form or another. I see an immense improvement in this over any of my own plans, and I am inclined to think the house will be one of the most convenient, comfortable, and picturesque houses of its size in the district.

Mr. Donkin (the Archt^t.) has told me of a splendid substitute for plaster on ceilings, which is quite as cheap & cannot be distinguished from it,— and it will also form the upper part of panelled walls. He [2] has also some excellent plans for forming, economically, wood ceilings showing the beams in various ways thus giving a distinctive character to the Hall, & perhaps also to the Dining Room.

The Hall be will be very pretty with the Handsome Staircase lighted from the roof and giving access to all the rooms with scarcely any passages, which I never could manage. That is the economy of his plan, which really, in an equal area gives more accommodation.

I was very urgent however as to economy, and he asked me what was my limit. I said, that as I wished to have a margin for extra expenses sure to arise, I did not wish to spend more than £.1000 on the house. He replied — "Well, I think this house can be built for £1000." And of [3] course it will be built well, so far as comfort and durability are concerned. He will let us have the plans and elevations before ‘Xmas, so that if you come, as I really hope you will be able to, we can all admire our future abode, for I consider them final, except as regards details that can be altered during construction as I shall be my own contractor.

I had a letter from Mac² a few days back written on shipboard during his "3rd. voyage to S. Africa." He seems to be getting on well, as I was sure he would when he had a chance.

I am slowly recovering from a severe attack of bronchitis brought on by standing on a cold wet day to see some of our apple trees planted at Broadstone,³& having to bawl out instructions to an old rather deaf gardener. But I won’t do it again! [4] I have now 2 gardeners, and three men putting up gates road-clearing and fencing. Then I am going to sink a well, as the cost of "extending the mains" is too exorbitant. I have just bought at a sale of nursery stock over a thousand trees and shrubs, — perhaps nearer 2000!

In one lot I have 40 good rose bushes for ^s4/- 21 nice Filberts ^s2/- four fine Morello cherries 1/6 — 24 small Rhodendrons [sic] 2/- (would cost to buy ^retail 2/- each) 17 fine young apple trees of good sorts at an average of about 6^d each — 60 young sycamore trees at less than 1d each, will do finely to form shelter on North and N.E. boundary — 50 Rhododendrons at about 3d each which I want for planting in the west wood near fence, and quantities of other miscellaneous shrubs, hosts of roses &c. Ma⁴ has been three times to the Nurseries (a mile from here) & thinks we have got a very good lot — & cheap.

[written vertically up in left margin] Your affectionate Pa | Alfred R. Wallace [signature]