| Description | On the receipt of a report into the "conflagration" at Chavening House in 1796.
Lord Stanhope also forwards on a beam of Chavening House, half of which he asks be forwarded by the Association of Architects to the Royal Society.
Transcript;
' I return you many thanks for communicationg to me the Report made to you by the Persons appointed by you to inspect the Effects of the conflagration which happened at this place in the month of October last.
That Report is substantially correct. I have agreeably your desire / made such alterations in it as were necessary to make it critically exact. But you will perceive, by the amended Copy which I return enclosed, that the Substance is, as to all the material parts, the same.
I have the pleasure of sending you herewith, one of the two Beams mentioned in that Report for your inspection. The Beam has been sawed in two, about the middle, in order to send it to you with the more convenience, and also for the reasons hereinafter mentioned.
After this Beam has been viewed by your laudable Association of Architects, I must beg the favor of you to send one of the halves of it to the Royal Society and the other half to the Society for the encouragement of Arts Manufactures and Commerce together with one of the two enclosed Drawsings to each Society as a present from me; and to be kept by those learned and useful Bodies, respectively, for the satisfaction of the present, and of future generations, as nothing can be more demonstrative or convincing, or can prove more strongly the two principles of securing Buildings against Fire. I beg you will have the goodness to send, to each of these learned Bodies, at the same time, a Copy of this Letter of mine to you, and likewise a Copy of the enclosed Report. The public importance of the object will make you forgive the trouble which I give you.
I am Gentlemen Your obedient Servant (signed) Stanhope.
To Mr Holland and the other Members of the Association of Architects of London
PS It will probably give you pleasure to be informed that I intend to publish a new Treatise on Calcareous Cement; my Chalk Tar Composition for preserving Trees; the Mortar of the Antients which I have revivied; a cheap and improved method of burning Lime; by means of the use of Water as Fuel, in great measure; a flexible and incombustible Roof, invented by me, which in respect to cheapness, dispatch, its being incapable of being injured by wind, and on account of sundry other advantages, is far more excellent than any Roof yet discovered, also the mannaer, found out by me, of making looking Glasses infrangible; and of rendering Houses incombustible etc. ' |