Traquair March 20th 1826
My Dear Louisa
I am thank God in better health than last year and have been lucky in escaping sore throats which have been very prevalent this Season. In my letter to your Aunt I told her I would make up the deficiency of your legacy that you might be more comfortable. We have had a great deal of cold weather and a few days a good deal of snow and the weather is not yet settled. I have just received the new plan of the mineral well at Innerleithen, which I am going to have built this summer, it is to be done in the Cottage stile with a neat veranda in front for people to sit in, and at the back of the house there is to be a small shrubbery intermixed with flowers , and a little beyond it there will be a small garden to contain fruit trees & vegetables for the use of the person who is to take charge of the well. There is to be no middens before the doors as is the custom in the old Scotch way. I expect when the whole is finished it will be a very neat thing and will bring a great number of water drinkers, there is also a plan made for building houses at Innerleithen which has been hitherto much wanted and the want of lodging has prevented many from coming to the well who would otherwise have been there. Some of the houses are to be built along the side of the water of Leithen and the new projected road that is to go betwixt Edinburgh and Carlisle is to pass by the front of those houses which to form a street in the Village ……..
This letter is displayed courtesy of the Traquair House Charitable Trust and by the generosity of Catherine Maxwell Stuart and the assistance of Margaret Fox, Traquair archivist.
