WCP41

[1]

Parkstone, Dorset.

Feb[ruar]^y.. 9th. 1902

My dear Will

Yours of the 7th. just received. This weeks progress is on the whole very satisfactory though the cellar excavations are not yet finished; but arrangements & contracts have been now made so that the work can I hope go on uninterruptedly.

Bricks (common but very good) are to be delivered on the ground at 27s[hillings]/— a thousand, and the farmer (a brother of the brickmaker) allows them to be carted through his field on our making good the ruts & track when work is finished. This is a great advantage, as the bricks will be stacked close behind & above the house. Carting of gravel for concrete is arranged to begin at once, @ 10d¹ a cubic yard to be delivered [the] same way. We have found no sand in the foundation & we were going to dig trenches near [the] gate to find it, when [2] the difficulty has been most agreeably settled by the brickmaker offering to let us have all the sand we want at cost of carting—1s[hilling]/— a yard— as the covering of this clay is sand & he wants to get rid of it. It is excellent sharp sand, and Curtis says we could not dig it on our own ground and wheel it up to the house at less money if for so little, besides saving all the mess and loss of time. The best red facing bricks for [the] lower part of [the] house will be got from Bridgewater.²

Ten tons of Cement have been ordered at Poole at (I think) 36s[hillings]/— a ton, and the carting 2/6³ a ton. Stone lime also, at a moderate rate, but I forget the price. Timber we get from Norton’s at Poole, at wholesale builders’ prices. I have just paid his first bill of £.16. for timber & boards for the shed, & for scaffold board & wheeling and 1 1/2 cost.[?] of nails. As a sample of prices, good red deal 2" x 4", 1s[hilling]/— a foot cube.

We shall thus get all out main building materials very cheap, and I am now [3] quite satisfied that young Curtis knows his business and takes an interest in it, while at every question of difficulty or economy he refers to his father, who seems equally interested & well disposed.

My cold is nearly well, but as the weather has been very bad I have not been to "O. O."⁵ all last week as there was nothing I could do. P[ercy]. Curtis came over here on Thursday morning, & yesterday Saturday morning for cash for men. So far, he has paid all trifles of pence or one or two shilling himself getting a note of it & I settle at the week end, but where amounts of a few shillings or pounds are concerned, the accounts are sent to me & I pay them. This is so simple & involves no accounts between me & him but his weekly wages & petty cash, which he is going to keep now in regular cash-books in which he will note the mens "time" daily, as he has always done carefully, they being paid by the hour. I will offer him an advance [4] for petty expenses, but I rather think he will prefer to go on as we now do.

As there is still a great deal to do in planting trees & shrubs bought at the sale, & moving others from here, as well as sowing vegetable seeds &c. &c. I must go over the first fine day to give Pennington his instructions, and going there for a couple of hours does me good giving me the daily exercise I want.

As the foundations for the house are almost all in clay, we shall be very careful to have the outer walls, whenever they are below the surface, cemented outside, as well as having the footings flushed with cement & sand, to prevent any damp getting through or rising in the foundation walls, while the concreted & cemented floor of the whole inside area will keep the whole quite dry.— We shall also put a drain pipe or two to form an outlet below the cellar floor at the lowest point in case of any possible accumulation of water there.

Your affect[ionate]. Pa | A. R. Wallace [signature]