Nicholas Pevsner, the author of The Buildings of England, said of Crowcombe Court that it was ‘the finest house of its date in Somerset south of the Bath area’. The builder of this house was Thomas Carew (1703-1766) who left not only this magnificent house but also an extensive collection of the letters he received from his relatives, friends and business acquaintances. These cast light on the social, economic and political history of the period as well as his own financial and family problems.
From his decision in the early 1720s to build his new house in Crowcombe to his death some 40 years later, the one constant factor in Thomas’s life was his inability to live within his means. A letter of April 1724 refers to the demolition of the old house at Crowcombe and how much this was costing. The writer, Thomas’s uncle, added ‘if tis so in pulling downe God alone knows what twill be when the house is raising’. He was right to worry – Thomas never recovered from the cost of building Crowcombe Court and the expense of living there. By the end of 1749, he was renting property in London for himself and his family and he stayed there until late in 1757; it was cheaper than continuing to live in Somerset.
Other evidence of his inability to rein in his spending can be found in letters relating to his decision to stand for the parliamentary seat of Minehead in 1739. He spent lavishly in an effort to gain the electorate’s votes and was successful but as a letter written a year after the election shows, he was tardy in paying his bills. ‘Widow Spurriers necessitys have oblig’d her to send another messenger for her bill; if your master intends to represent the Borough in the next parliament, I advise you not only to pay hers, but all other bills which you have no reason to object to …’. Some £300 was still owing, approximately £47,250 in today’s terms.
Letters from tradesmen asking for payment of outstanding bills can be found such as one from a wine merchant in 1753 ‘you must allow us to observe to you that your account swells to a very large size, and as we are vastly desirous of preserving your friendship we should be very glad you would order payment of it soon, as it is impossible to give such very long credit. The sum you owe us is really considerable and we hope you will not take it amiss that we should earnestly request its being diminished before it is encreas’d’. The list of debts due at Thomas’s death includes entries for groceries, wine, coals, candles, plumber’s and mason’s bills, drugs & medicines ‘while Mr Carew lived in London’, and ‘hire & keeping horses for Mr Carew while in London’.
While he was absent from Crowcombe, not only in the years 1749-1757 but at other times, the Rector Henry Lockett kept him informed of local affairs. His letters comment on a multitude of local events: who had been ill and who had died, who wished to lease one of the properties on the estate and who wasn’t willing to pay the rent requested, a parish bastardy case that had gone before the Justices, the apprenticing of pauper children and the ‘Widow’s Groat’ charity, the condition of Thomas’s cattle, sheep, deer, crops and the various fruit trees in the garden, with passing references to the sight of the ‘blazi[ng] starr here in full lustre’ (Chéseaux’s comet) in 1744 and ‘the success of our young hero in Scotland’ in 1746.
Other letters illustrate the trouble Thomas had within his own family. The dissolute life led by Thomas, his elder nephew, had caused his father to disinherit him in his will, leaving him only a small annuity. By 1758 the younger Thomas had not only married a woman of whom his uncle fiercely disapproved but was also imprisoned in Newgate Gaol in London for debt. In 1761, in exasperation, his uncle wrote ‘you have spent your all scandalously you are incapable of undertaking any place of trust at home & you refuse to undertake the only means you have left for a livelihood, to maintain you like a gentleman I cannot nor will not ... you shall not have a farthing from me unless you immediatetly prepare to go aboard a man of war in the best station I can get you’. His younger nephew John was equally problematic but this was mainly because Thomas owed him a great deal of money due on a mortgage of the family’s estates in Pembrokeshire and John was determined to have this paid him. It was only the fortuitous marriage of Thomas’s younger daughter Elizabeth to James Bernard, a barrister, in 1764 that saved the day, as Bernard agreed to buy the estates that would otherwise have had to be sold to raise the necessary money to pay off John.
As well as a selection of 354 of the surviving letters, this book contains an introduction to Thomas and his family with pedigrees and personal, place and subject indices. The illustrations include portraits of some of the family members, a sketch of Revd Henry Lockett who was Rector of Crowcombe and Clatworthy for many years, a 1740s painting of Crowcombe Court and a later c.1767 plan showing the house and gardens. The appendices include the architect Nathanial Ireson’s contract and estimates of the costs of building the Court, Thomas’s will and an account of the debts he left at his death.