1830
An extract from a letter written in 1887 by Lewis Franklyn
“I am now an old man having come into existence in the year 1820, yet I maintain a vivid recollection of when, between four and five years old, I was taken by my grandmother (Catherine Ball) for the first time to Linkinhorne, where for many years till near the end of her life I used to a accompany her annually in the apple season when she went there to receive the value of the produce of her orchard and the rent of some small property which she there inherited. On the first occasion, which I know must have been in or about the year 1825, your grandmother (Mrs Smetheram), with her sons, was living in the village of Rilla Mill, Linkinhorne, Cornwall, where I was taken, upon which occasion I must have experienced something like the feeling of special wonderment that overcame you when in your early day you contemplated what then seemed to you an enormous consumption of paper:- my feeling was that I had been brought in contact with the most extravagant and wasteful household, for upon being taken into Mrs Smetheram’s garden to see some rabbits fed, one of the sons brought to the hutch what I should suppose to be at least a bushel of beautiful parsley, the marketable value of which I thought far beyond what ought to be bestowed upon four or five rodents. In the early days of my apprenticeship, when about to visit Linkinhorne, as was my wont, to spend Christmas, Mrs Smetheram requested me to convey there for her a live rabbit of an unknown breed in that remote locality, the conveyance of which, I well remember, caused me considerable anxiety, for although Linkinhorne was less than 25 miles distant from Plymouth, in those pre-railway days such a journey was to a juvenile, fraught with a deal of ( corner missing) first by a two mile walk from Plymouth to Devonport and thence to Saltash by boat 4 miles, where if fortunate a carrier’s conveyance may be obtainable to Callington, about 10 miles, and then again another walk or chance conveyance of five miles or thereabouts to Linkinhorne; and it was with a feeling of relief that the next day I got rid of my precious cargo, safe and sound, to the person to whom it was consigned (name forgotten), a resident in the village of Plusha Bridge, Linkinhorne.”
A photocopy of this letter, which is at least four pages long and cover over topics was kindly sent to me by ………… (sorry name forgotten).