| Content Description | Writes that there is a plantation of young oaks and thick wood on an otherwise worthless piece of hill ground on the tenant Mr Watts' land in Barlow in Derbyshire, which the woodmen were cutting; mentions that Mr Watts claimed that his father had been allowed the wood by Duke Henry and Duke John [Dukes of Newcastle] and was to have ploughed the land, but that they had kept the wood so as to produce ash for their business as soap boilers; has not managed to see the lease to Mr Watts' father as requested; writes that he told Mr Watts that he could have the brush wood, but forbade him from cutting down any more of the young oaks.
Mentions a dispute between the two Marlow brothers at Norton, culminating in John Marlow threatening to throw his brother the blacksmith out of his shop which had always been on John's land and for which his brother had always paid rent; writes that the blacksmith had started to build a new shop on a piece of land near Cossen's house and was to have cut down some good trees; has stopped him from doing anything until he has received orders from Lord Harley; states that having a smithy so close by would be a great inconvenience. |