ABSTRACT
Layard did not spend much time in London during 1848. Most of the year he lived with his mother in Cheltenham on the River Severn. There may have been a brief pause in his visits to cousin Charlotte, but we have no reason to believe that the mutual attraction had become too much of an obstacle, so that either he himself found it most convenient to stay away, or that he had perhaps discreetly been asked to limit his visits. In fact, in August and September he accompanied Charlotte and her husband on a tour of Scotland, where they visited manors to take part in the delights of the hunting season. Lady Charlotte was engrossed in Carlyle's book on the Middle Ages which she read with deep fascination. At the end of October the large farm show took place at Canford, and Layard again visited. He lectured in the Town Hall of neighbouring Poole, where he kept his audience in a spell with his account of the excavations at Nimrud. He seems now to have spent most of his time together with the Guests (Bessborough 1950: 223).
