Stratford Hall - Potomac River Trip Pt. II

While on our camping trip last weekend, we were able to go to nearby Stratford Hall, a place I have wanted to see since I was young. Although the place is thick with history, I have long been more fascinated by the architecture of the place. The house was constructed in the 1730's by Richard Lee and was built to impress. It was home to many members of the Lee family including Richard Henry Lee and Francis Lightfoot Lee - the only pair of brothers who signed the Declaration of Independence. It is perhaps best known as the birthplace of Robert E. Lee, though he just lived here for the first four years of his life.

The house was built in the Georgian style and the name of its architect has been lost to the ages. As our tour guide informed us: the three most important aspects of Georgian architecture are symmetry, symmetry and symmetry. The house appears much bigger than it actually is, and when you get inside you realize the amount of family living space is not what you might expect. The floor plan is that of a giant "H" with all of the family's rooms on the upper story and with storage and service rooms in the ground level basement. The main entrance of the house is easy to find at the top of the massive steps and leads you into the great hall, which is one big room that occupies the entire middle of the house, front to back. On either side of the great hall are three to four rooms in each wing. The most prominent feature of the house are those fantastic chimney stacks, which were once linked by a roof deck where the occasional dance took place.

On either side of the house are walled gardens. The west garden is primarily planted with fruits, vegetables and herbs, both medicinal and culinary. The east garden is more formal and ornamental with plantings set among boxwood parterres (it couldn't be an old house in Virginia without lots of box). Among the gardens are four large, original out buildings, symmetrical to the main house. Here meals were cooked, laundry was done and gardening tools were stored. In one of the orchards there was small brick building called the Octagon, and it appeared to be used as a summer house.

Magnolia grandiflora

Fig (Ficus carica) and Winterberry Holly (Ilex verticillata)

Hydrangea paniculata and Winterberry Holly

Devil's Walking Stick (Aralia spinosa)

The foundations and fortunes of Stratford Hall (and the whole state of Virginia for that matter) were built from this pretty plant not normally grown for its flowers - Nicotiana tabacum.

Dogwood (Cornus florida)

I saw this plant in the East Garden and thought it must be some kind of fall blooming Crocus or a regular one blooming out of season. However, when I examined the foliage, it looked like something else, and one of my co-workers later helped me ID it as Sternbergia sicula.

The house is oriented to the Potomac and a strip of the forest is kept clear so the vista remains. This shot is the rear of the house as it faces the river, the smaller building is the Octagon.

Our tour guide for the main house was extremely informed and passionate about what he did. He made a real effort to relate our lives to those lived in the 1700's. My only issue about the tour and the visitor's center is the all too brief mention of slavery, in fact the tour guide kept using the word "servant" when "slave" may have been more appropriate. I had to finally ask how many slaves it took to run the plantation. He told us at one time the plantation had 130 slaves, as well as 130 indentured servants (so I became a little less indignant). I know this historical issue is a difficult one to convey, and there are many places, like Colonial Williamsburg, that have embraced the ugly parts of our history and have worked it into their interpretations.

Well behind the main house, off on the edge of the woods is a cabin. In its small yard is a memorial to "Uncle Wes" and carved into the stone is what I am sure were well meaning words when they were written, but in 2009 they come close to sounding patronizing. Perhaps my preference for seeing the big picture was making me misread how history was interpreted here.

Stratford Hall is fairly close to other attractions in Virginia and nearby Washington D.C., and if you get the opportunity you should visit. The admission is very reasonable and the private foundation that owns and runs it could use the revenue. On a beautiful clear fall Sunday, when the place should have been very busy, we had it to ourselves.

(If you are interested, there are more pictures here.)

Westmoreland State Park - Potomac River Trip Pt. I

Over Columbus Day weekend, my son and I headed to Virginia's Northern Neck for a few days of camping at Westmoreland State Park. Opened in 1936, this is one of the Commonwealth's six original state parks and was created in an earlier economic stimulus package by the Civilian Conservation Corp, but its history is much older than that. The park is next to the Potomac River on land that was once part of Stratford Hall, home of the Lees. It is also just down river from the birthplaces of George Washington and James Monroe.

The park has several nice trails and is heavily wooded with most of the forest in the climax stage of growth. Large maples, oaks, beeches and tulip poplars dominate the landscape. Underneath these trees the forest floor is relatively clear, but you can see American holly, ferns and mountain laurel - lots of mountain laurel, I need to come back late next spring to see them bloom. Our camp site was in a less wooded area, but it was still nice and had wild grapes hanging over the tent pad.

The trail behind our camp led us through the rich forest, down nearly 200' of steep slopes to a wetland and then out to Fossil Beach and the Potomac. You can guess why it is called Fossil Beach. 15 million years ago the whole area was covered by a warm, shallow Miocene sea that was teaming with marine life, including 20 species of shark who were constantly shedding their teeth only to fall to the bottom to become covered in sediment. We spent quite a bit of time looking for fossils, especially the large teeth of the giant Megalodon shark. Unfortunately we only found some of its smaller cousin's teeth.

One of the more exciting parts of our trip was a guided kayak tour. Although the skies were gloomy when we put the kayaks in the water, the weather was otherwise calm. There were about 15-20 people on the trip and soon after we left the landing the winds came up and so did the waves. Water was coming into the kayak and we were getting soaked; I was afraid the water-proof bag would not protect my camera from the salt water, but it did. We were lucky compared to others, several people ended up in the water and had swim to shore. The ranger ended the trip early and had us beach the kayaks underneath Horsehead Cliffs, where you are not normally allowed to go. The cliffs are fragile and have a tendency to slough off huge hunks of earth, sandstone boulders and large trees. The weather never calmed, and we ended up having to abandon the kayaks and walk back to the landing, but this gave everyone something to remember and an opportunity to look for more fossils.

I was hoping to see some fall colors while we were there, but things had only entered the early stages and were still mostly green, but green is a color too. Nevertheless there were plenty of things to look at including Baccharis in full bloom, fruiting deciduous hollies, wild rose hips and native Viburnum.

My next post will take us to Stratford Hall, a place I have always wanted to visit. If you would like to see the rest of my Westmoreland Park photos, you can visit my Flickr page.