The Cultural History of Marlborough, Virginia Part 19

However, Palladio ill.u.s.trates the villa of "the magnificent Lord Leonardo Emo" at "_Fanzolo_, in the _Trevigian_" (fig. 45), which may have caught Mercer's eye. This building had a central, raised pavilion with two one-story wings, each approximately 100 feet long. Each wing had a full-length, arcaded veranda. The wings were intended for stables, granaries, and so forth. Palladio commented:

"People may go under shelter every where about this House, which is one of the most considerable conveniences that ought to be desir'd in a Country-house."[156]

Mercer may have been impressed by this argument and by the arcade in the design. He was already familiar with arcades at the capitol at Williamsburg and at the College of William and Mary, as well as at outlying courthouses where he practiced, the courthouse at Stafford probably included. In any case, he did not have the veranda built until 1748 or 1749, after the main structure had been completed. It is significant, in this regard, that it was not until March 1748 that he settled accounts with Sydenham & Hodgson for the four architectural books (including Palladio).

A formal garden apparently was laid out in the nearly square, walled enclosure behind the mansion. It is perhaps wholly a coincidence that Palladio, writing about the villa at Fanzolo, commented, "On the back of this Building there is a square Garden."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 46.--EXCAVATION PLAN of Structure E, looking southwest.]

FOOTNOTES:

[149] HENRY CHANDLEE FORMAN, _The Architecture of the Old South_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp.

74-75.

[150] Op. cit. (footnote 94), p. 21.

[151] LOUIS CAYWOOD, _Excavations at Green Spring Plantation_ (Yorktown, 1955), pp. 11, 12, maps nos. 3 and 4.

[152] ROBERT BEVERLEY, op. cit. (footnote 5), p. 289.

[153] WATERMAN, op. cit. (footnote 94), pp. 23-26; FISKE KIMBALL, _Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic_ (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927), p. 42.

[154] ROSAMOND RANDALL BEIRNE and JOHN HENRY SCARFF, _William Buckland, 1734-1774; Architect of Virginia and Maryland_ (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1958).

[155] WATERMAN, op. cit. (footnote 94), p. 298.

[156] ANTONIO PALLADIO, _The Architecture of A. Palladio ...

Revis'd, Design'd, and Publish'd By Giacomo Leoni ... The Third Edition, Corrected ..._ (London, 1742), p. 61, pl. 40.

XI

_Kitchen Foundation_ (_Structure E_)

DESCRIPTION OF EXCAVATIONS

Structure E was a brick foundation, 17 feet by 32 feet, situated at the northwest corner of the enclosure-wall system. Its south wall was continuous with Wall D, which joined it, and was at right angles to Wall E. The latter ab.u.t.ted it in line with an interior foundation wall which bisected the structure into two room areas, designated X and Y. Thus it once stood like a bastion extending outside the enclosure walls, but remaining integral with them and affording a controlled entrance to the enclosure (fig. 46).

The east end of Structure E extended under a modern boundary fence to the present edge of the highway. Ditching of the highway had cut into the foundation and exposed the debris and slabs of stone in place, which indeed had provided the first clues to the existence of the structure.

Clearance of the easterly area, Room X, revealed a pavement of roughly rectangular slabs of mixed Aquia-type lime-sandstone and red sandstone.

These slabs were flaked, eroded, and discolored, as though they had been exposed to great heat. The pavement was not complete, some stones having apparently been removed. The scattered locations of the stones remaining _in situ_ implied that the entire room was originally paved.

Between the northwest corner of Room X and a brick abutment 5 feet to the south was a rectangular area where the clay underlying the room had been baked to a hard, red, bricklike ma.s.s (fig. 49). Wood ash was admixed with the clay. This was clearly the site of a large fireplace, where constant heat from a now-removed hearth had penetrated the clay.

Extending north 3.8 feet beyond the bounds of the room at this point was a U-shaped brick foundation 4.75 feet wide. Near the southeast corner of the room, just outside of the foundation, which it ab.u.t.ted, was a well-worn red-sandstone doorstep, which located the site of the door communicating between Structure E and the interior of the enclosure--and, of course, between Structure E and Structure B, the distance between which was 100 feet.

Room Y, extending west beyond the corner of the enclosure walls was perhaps an addition to the original structure. The disturbed condition of the bricks where this area joined Room X, however, obscured any evidence in this respect. In the northeast corner, against the opposite side of the fireplace wall in Room X, was another area of red-burned clay. Lying across this was a long, narrow slab of wrought iron, 34.5 by 6 inches (fig. 50), which may have served in some fas.h.i.+on as part of a stove or fire frame. In any case, a small fireplace seems to have been located here. Approximately midway in the west wall of Room Y, against the exterior, lay a broken slab of red sandstone, which obviously also served as a doorstone. That it had been designed originally for a more sophisticated purpose is evident in the architectural treatment of the stone, which is smoothly dressed with a torus molding along each edge and a diagonal cut across one end (fig. 41). No evidence of floor remained in this room, except for a smooth surface of yellow clay which became sticky when exposed to rain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 47.--FOUNDATION of Structure E (kitchen).]

The north half of Room Y was filled with broken bricks, mortar, plaster, nails, and--significantly--small bits of charred wood and burned hornets' nests. The concentration of debris here could be explained by the collapse of the chimney as well as the interior wall into the room.

The crumbly condition of the southwest portion of the exterior-wall foundation also may indicate a wall collapse. Few artifacts were recovered in this area.

North of Room X lay a large amount of rubble and artifacts, suggesting that the north wall had fallen away from the building, perhaps carrying with it shelves of dishes and utensils. Both rooms contained ample evidence in the form of ash, charcoal, burned hornets' nests, and scorched flagstones to demonstrate that a fire of great heat had destroyed the building.

ARCHITECTURAL DATA AND INTERPRETATION

John Mercer's account with Thomas Barry (Ledger G) itemizes for 1749, "building a Kitchen/ raising a Chimney/ building an oven." It is clear from the features of Structure E, its relation to Structure B, and the custom prevalent in colonial Virginia of building separate dependencies for the preparation of food, that Structure E was the kitchen referred to in Barry's account. Like this building, kitchens elsewhere were almost invariably two rooms in plan--a cooking room and a pantry or storage room. One of the earliest--at Green Spring--had a large fireplace for the kitchen proper, and in the second room a smaller fireplace, both served by a central chimney. An oven stood inside the building between the larger fireplace and the wall.[157] At Stratford (ca. 1725) the kitchen is similarly planned, as it is at Mannsfield (Spotsylvania County).[158] Mount Vernon has an end chimney in its kitchen, and only one fireplace. The floor of the kitchen proper is paved with square bricks, while the second room has a clay floor. The Stratford kitchen is paved with ordinary bricks. Such examples can be multiplied several times.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 48.--PAVED FLOOR OF ROOM X, Structure E, showing HL door hinge in foreground. (See fig. 88a.)]

The physical relations.h.i.+p of the kitchen to the main house in Virginia plantations was dictated in part by convenience and in part by the Palladian plans that governed the architecture of colonial mansions.

Structure E's relations.h.i.+p to Structure B is representative of that existing between most kitchens and their main buildings. Mount Vernon, Stratford, Blandfield, Nomini Hall, Rosewell, and many other plantations have, or had, kitchens located at points diagonal to the house and on axes at right angles to them. Usually each was balanced by a dependency placed in a similar relations.h.i.+p to the opposite corner of the house.

Sometimes covered walkways connected the pairs of dependencies, curved as at Mount Vernon, Mount Airy, and Mannsfield, or straight as at Blandfield in Ess.e.x County (1771). Marlborough, as we shall see, was not typical in its layout, but the relations.h.i.+p between kitchen and house was the customary one.

The thickness of the foundations in Structure E was the width of four bricks--approximately 17 inches. As usual in the case of the lower courses of a foundation, the bricks were laid in a somewhat random fas.h.i.+on. The intact portions of the south and west walls revealed corners of bricks laid end to end so as to expose headers on both sides.

The east wall showed pairs of bricks placed at right angles to each other, so that headers and stretchers appeared alternately. On the north wall of Room X bricks were laid as headers on the outside and as stretchers, one behind the other, on the inside. These variations probably are due to different bricklayers having worked on the building simultaneously. Since oddly a.s.sorted courses would have been below ground level, care for their appearance was minimal. Finished exterior brickwork was required only above the lowest point visible to the eye.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 49.--NORTH WALL of Structure E, looking east. Sign stands on part.i.tion wall between Rooms X and Y and in front of rectangular section of burnt red clay, upon which fireplace hearth stood. Projecting foundation at left may have supported an oven. Iron slab (see fig. 50) lies _in situ_ with trowel on top.]

Brick sizes ran from 9 to 9-1/2 inches long, 4 to 4-1/2 inches wide, and 2-1/4 to 2-3/4 inches thick. These measurements are similar to those of bricks in the veranda foundation and the added cellar cross wall of Structure B. It is apparent from Ledger G that the elements in Structure B, as well as the kitchen, were all built by Thomas Barry. Barry probably used bricks that he himself made, according to the custom of Virginia bricklayers, so that the archeological and doc.u.mentary evidences of the extent of his work in the two buildings reinforce each other.

The protruding rectangle of bricks at the north end of Structure E resembles the foundation for steps in Structure B. However, its position directly adjacent to what must be a.s.sumed to have been the fireplace precludes the possibility of its having been the location for a step.

Moreover, the pavement and doorstones at the west and south demonstrate that the floor of the kitchen was at ground level, so that a raised step at the north side would have been not only unnecessary, but impossible.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 50.--WROUGHT-IRON SLAB, found in Room Y, Structure E, behind fireplace. Purpose unknown. Size, 6 by 35 inches.]

We know from the ledger that Barry built an oven and raised a chimney.

That the latter was a central chimney may be a.s.sumed on the basis of the evidence of the two fireplaces placed back to back. There is, however, no archeological evidence that there was an oven within the structure, and every negative indication that there was not. The rectangular protrusion, exactly in line with the end of the fireplace thus was apparently the foundation for a brick oven, the domed top of which extended outside the building, with its opening made into the north end of the fireplace. Protruding ovens are known in New York and New England, but none in Virginia has come to the writer's attention. On the other hand, protruding foundations like the one here are also unknown in Virginia kitchens, except where slanting ground, as at Mount Vernon, has made steps necessary.

It may be concluded that Structure E was the plantation kitchen, that it was built in 1749, that it had two rooms (a cookroom with fireplace paving and a large fireplace, and a second room with a smaller fireplace), that an oven built against the exterior of the building opened into the north end of the fireplace, and that the first, and probably the only, floor was at ground level. Archeological evidence points to final destruction of the building by fire. (Mercer indicated that fire had threatened it previously in the entry in his journal for April 22, 1765, which noted "kitchen roof catch'd fire.") In the form of datable artifacts, it also shows that the structure was destroyed in the early 19th century, since the latest ceramic artifacts date from about 1800.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 51.--EXCAVATION PLAN of structures north of Wall D.]

FOOTNOTES:

[157] CAYWOOD, loc. cit. (footnote 151).

[158] WATERMAN, loc. cit. (footnote 94).

XII

_Supposed Smokehouse Foundation_ (_Structure F_)