Saturday, April 1, 1837

1837

April

Saturday 1

8

1 55/..

No kiss. More snow in the night – all white again.  My dressing room skylight darkened – sun out now at 9 20/.. and Fahrenheit 54°

Had Mr. Husband at 9.  Gave him a check (No. 93) for his last 3 month wages = £24 due on the 11th ultimo – The 1st time I have ever paid him by check – He said there would be £40 wanted in account of the Stump Cross Inn – Said I ought to have known before – Must pay by check and should give himself one –

Had Mr. Samuel Washington with a notice from Statham to quit the Stump Cross Cottages (late William Green) on the 1st day of June – He will have lived there about 4 months – Merely observed I should have been glad to have possession sooner –

Then had just sat down to breakfast when Mr. Cole came for payment of a little bill in account of Northgate hotel (Conductor pipes) = £9.4.7 – Thought only of Mr. Cole the Engineer – said I did not like a high pressure engine – Had told Mr. Harper to settle about it – Had got a plan of a low pressure Engine – Gave Mr. Cole, payable to Messers Sturges and Company, a check. No.  94 for £9.4.6 –

Then had David Mallinson, joiner, and Firth, plumber, with order from Mr. Harper in account of the hotel and gave the former Check 95 for £300 and the latter check 96 for £70 

Then breakfast till 11 – Then with Ann till she sent off her letter to her sister –

Little Mary to come with Hannah – Their home to be here –

Know nothing of Pitchforth but what I learnt yesterday (from Mr. Parker), that his name is Solomon, brother to Parker who has the Boothroyde – That (all that Ann mentioned to Mrs. Sutherland) he is very respectable and married the daughter of Mr. Hulings, excise collector here and a man of property – But that all things considered, Ann and I would not be anxious to sell the most valuable part of the field on the terms proposed. 

Had they not best get the field set out and valued – Building lots before they sold any of it, and then they would know what they were doing ? – Ann said I said they could not be wrong in selling 500 or 600 yards of Landsmere stone to a person sufficiently respectable and substantial – and that quantity enough to sell at 1st – Should be staked out; and Mr. Parker, accustomed to stone-agreements, would make all safe –

Ann took my advice in merely (after giving copy of the plan and saying the road would make a highway for carts and carriages day and night and would  not the best way of stopping this be by building a Lodge) asking what they thought of acting upon Benouri’s plan or something like it – Adding that if anything was done about it, they should be at no expense and the new part road would of course be as much theirs as the present road –

Mr. S. Gray is coming – Ann will consult him – I think he will advise judiciously – and I am satisfied –

I cannot help feeling my own credit (the credit of my own taste) at stake; and I am anxious that Ann’s concerns should never appear to have interested me less than my own –

Came to my study at 11 3/4 – Had Stephen Mallinson, Carpenter, (did not see him).  Paid him by check 97 £19.2.6 – account of the Stump Cross Inn new building.

Wrote all the above of today till 12 1/2 – then inking over memoranda in my rough book – and a little while with Ann –

Little John, who took to the post her letter to Mrs. Sutherland, brought for me note from the Halifax Philosophical Society a paper ‘on the geographical distribution of plants’ to be read on Monday, – and a letter from Mariana, Lawton, 3 pages and ends  – Altering the offices at Lawton – all in bustle – just off to Leamington, the house there to be given up 1 June, and Mr. Ackers has lent them Moreton, near Laston so that they may overlook the alterations at home – the Norcliffes, Isabella and Charlotte, mortally offended at Burnett for being housekeeper to their brother instead of themselves, and disgusted at Ellen’s indifference on the loss of her mother, Mrs. Best –

Had James Wood and wrote him (all my regular checks done) check No. 98 = £20 in account of Mason’s work at the Stump Cross Inn –

Then wrote the last 9 lines till 1 1/2 –

From 1 1/2 to 3 3/4 (Ann off to Cliff hill between 2 and 3 ?), at colliery accounts –

Then out till came in (just after Ann ) at 5 1/2 – With the masons (4?) at the meer-drift head clow – Then with Robert +3 filling holes down to the meer between the 2 brook Ings old hedge-row – and at new drain in Sour Ing, John Day carting clay from this new drift to fill up the hollow as above – Edward and James at carriage house court necessary front wall – and Ingham +2 or 3 at the dry walling there this afternoon –

Dressed – Had the 2 Manns (who came at 5 1/2) till 6 55/.. – Settled with them.  Talked over the Spiggs water clow and mentioned 1st time John Oates’s opinion that it would be best to bring the Incline out at once at the top of the bank – Joseph Mann thought we could not get water – Desired them to think the matter over –

Dinner at 7 – Ann asleep on the sofa in the north parlour 50 minutes.  Coffee at 9 – I had sat reading Wordsworth’s Attica and Athens from page 136 to 180 – Came upstairs at 10 1/2 –

Till 12, firing off my pistols – Had John up to put in a new flint, and see what was the matter with the percussion pistol – The powder damp – Dried it – Surely all is right now –

Finish morning – snow and hail and very wintry afternoon from before 2 – Fair in the evening – Fahrenheit 30° now at 12 10/.. tonight

 

WYAS Finding Number SH:7/ML/E/20/0042