Monday 1 April 1839

Finish, dullish, windy softish coldish morning Fahrenheit 39 1/2 inside and 38 1/2 outside at 8 25/60 studying how to do the armories in the library passage - till breakfast at 8 50/60 in about 1/2 hour

Then had Booth - Edward Waddington come to square the flags for the entrance passage - had Booth up in the blue room while I looked over (turned out) my drawers to see for the mason-working drawings of the stables at Northgate, for Mr. Nelson - Mr. Harper said he had left them with me - no! certainly not - on seeing them from Blythe, I gave them unopened to Booth, and have never had them since

Then with Robert the joiner till off with Ann at 11 55/60 to Crow nest to look after William Keighley pruning poplars there and to see about some spouting wanted at the house - could not find William Keighley sauntered in the plantations in the sheep pasture - 4 good larches lately felled - 1/2 the firs or rather all of them want taking down, and the under wood might then get up - 1/2 the wood in the clumps wants weeding out

Then to Lower Crow nest (Hirst's) to see the dilapidated barn doors - 9 feet 6 inches by 12 feet? or thereabouts - should be new ones - went into the house to see the old chimney piece - plaster work - William Walker and Mary Walker (William and Mary Walker) 1665 I think it was - on an outside door T.S. 1620.

Then to Cliff hill - walked all along Ann's new walk - nicely covered with minion (fine foundry ash) - then to Crownest - never saw a more untidy ruin going place than it at the back - innumerable panes of glass broken - and damp and want of paint doing their devastation work rapidly - the warehouse (the large room in the west wing) now the domicile of hens and chickens - Ann saw John Washington, and remarked upon this - He answered impertinently She had no occasion to come and find fault about litter or chickens - the latter could not be so well kept anywhere else, and the litter was not 1/2 what it was when they (the Walkers) 1st. came there - Ann should not expect the place to be kept as it was in Mr. Walker's time when there were 7 or 8 men and now there were only two - and they had plenty to do - could only could sticks on a rainy day - and Ann's masons when they worked the pillars for Cliff hill, had left all the scraplings at Crow nest - I never uttered - John Washington's laugh that seemed to add to the impertinence of his many might perhaps be nervous - left Ann to go to Cliff hill, and I set off homewards at 3 1/2

Walked leisurely to Sunwood quarry - some time there talking to Lee and his man and boy who had got off the top baring of 20 to 30 yards flat, and were getting off the top rag

Then a little while at Listerwick - no engine workmen come today - all at a stand for them - then home - George Naylor's cart bringing engine ash today for the top terrace and my own cart bringing scraplings (terribly large) from Northowram - nobody here today - William Lord not working, and the others filling (Jack Green and Ben and Robert Mann himself)

Some time about in the farmyard &c. and with Robert the joiner till 6 50/60 - dressed - had Ann to do me - dinner at 7 10/60

Mr. Tew came from Norwood Green just before 6, but not choosing to send word what was his errand, Ann did not see him

Dinner at 7 10/60 Ann read French - note to her from Mr. Parker in answer to her note of inquiry sent this morning to say Miss Marion Lister ask £600 for Lee Lane - Ann to give it - 1/2 asleep on the sofa till coffee and wrote all but the first lines of today till now 9 50/60 - then reading Mitford's History Greece (quarto volume 1.) till came upstairs at 11 - Fahrenheit 40 1/2 inside and 34 1/2 outside at 11 10/60 p.m. finish, but raw windy, cold day 

WYAS: SH:7/ML/E/23/0011 & SH:7/ML/E/23/0012

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