Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Letter #4

Wednesday 11 January 2012
To Cassandra, from Rowling, "Mr and Mrs Cage and Mr and Mrs Bridges dined with us yesterday. Fanny seemed as glad to see me as anybody, and enquired very much after you, whom she supposed to be making your wedding-clothes. She is as handsome as ever, and somewhat fatter. We had a very pleasant day, and some liqueurs in the evening. Louisa's figure is very much improved; she is as stout again as she was. Her face, from what I could see of it one evening, appeared not at all altered. She and the gentlemen walked up here on Monday night-she came in the morning with the Cages from Hythe." - Jane Austen, Thursday 1 September 1796

Mr. and Mrs. Cage would have been Mr. Lewis Cage and Mrs. Fanny Cage, nee Bridges, (1771-May 1805) of Milgate, Bearsted, Kent. They married in 1791 and had two daughters, Fanny and Sophia. They were brother and sister-in-law to Edward Austen Knight.

It looks to me that Mr. and Mrs. Bridges would have to have been Revd Brook-Henry (1770-1855), rector of Woodham Ferrers and Danbury, Essex. He married Jane Hales in 1795. They had two sons and two daughters. Revd Brook-Henry would have been the only Bridges son married in 1796.

Louisa must have been Louisa Bridges, (1777-1856). She died unmarried.

This is a link to a gardening company's pictures of Milgate Park gardens.
http://www.specialistgardening.com/work-project-6.asp


Milgate House, Bearsted, Kent. I believe this house sold in 2008 for 1,690,000 pounds. It is just beautiful.

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