43 Peak Hill.
Sydenham
S.E.
4 Mch. 1910
My dear Father
It had not occurred to me that no one had yet described to you the new abode. I am, in point of fact, the least well qualified to tell you about it, for I have only been there once - one afternoon when we all went together, I to approve the choice and all of us to discuss repairs and decorations. It is a usual type of superior villa residence suitable for the needs of a gentleman with a small family' as an agents notice would probably express it. Red brick built, not yellow, thank goodness! and forming the left-hand member (as you face it) of a pair of semi-detached. In design it is unpretentious but quite graceful; not stiff and angular, but of that class of neat little house which moves foreigners to admire our domestic architecture. Front door is on the outside-wall side and opens into what may be described as a small entrance hall until it becomes stairs on the left and passage on the right. Opening into the said passage are the doors from study (front room) and dining room (back room) while if you go straight down the passage and through a green baize door you come to the kitchen (very small, the weakest point in the house). Arthur's and my room is the largest bedroom, over thestudy; Kath's is over the dining room, Jack's over the kitchen; bath room over the hall & front door. On the top floor is servant's room over Kath's, and over Jack's and mine a room with good cupboards which we shall use as a store-room. The cellars are entered by a door under the stairs leading from the passage between front door and kitchen door. Said cellars are admirable, roomy and dry, and gas is laid on in there, a thing which is useful, but hardly a convenience on which we should have wanted to spend money if it had not been there already. The rooms are just the right size – not too large for the furniture not too small for us. A French window opens from the dining room into the back garden which runs in a wedge shape of to the centre of the circus, and ends in a large rockery with nothing on it. I fancy it will require re-packing with earth before we plant on it. A path from the back garden leads to the side garden, which is the larger of the two. I think I can't do better than draw you a ground plan of the house and garden.
This is not intended to be drawn to scale in any way. It merely shows how things fit in.
You will observe that we have three gardens - front, side and back that puts us on equality with your "The garden", kitchen garden, and Pool garden. We also have a rockery and a summer house; so have you. We also have a fig tree; so have you not.
Thank you for the flower show schedule. If you will have a prize for a dish of figs in the open class I will compete. The prize list is quite a heavy one now. I don't know whether these special prizes are very good for the show. However, I suppose they are inevitable.
We are still busy, and likely to remain so. By a foolish fiction the Private Secretary is supposed to remain attached to the department from which he was taken. Consequently Webb is still supposed (according to this polite fiction) to be in the Rental Dept; consequently we are one man short permanently and the man who used to be shared between the two divisions now exists no longer. I expect this will mean pretty continuous overtime for me. I shall have to try and turn it to account later on.
Love to all from
your affect. Son
