New Garden Historical Commission - British Architectural Historians Visit - 2004

<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#990099" > <table border="0" cellpadding="5" width="100%" bgcolor="#999999"> <tr> <td><p align="center"><img src="../lyceum/lyceum.jpg" width="200" height="114"></p> </td> <td align="center"> <h1><font color=black>New Garden Historical Commission</font></h1> <p><a href="../index.htm" target="_top"><font color=black>Click here</font></a> <font color=black> to return to the home page and links to other articles</font></p> </td> </tr> </table> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none"><font size="4"><strong>British Architectural Historians Visit New Garden Township</strong></font></p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none"><font size="3"><strong>September 17, 2004</strong></font></p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt"><img src="questions.jpg" width="500" height="454"></p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt"><font size="2">University of Delaware Professor Bernie Herman (gray shirt) answering questions</font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt">As part of an American tour from Concord to Williamsburg, a study group of British researchers stopped in New Garden Township on September 17, 2004 to view several of our historic buildings. The Vernacular Architecture Group, a scholarly organization devoted to the documentation and interpretation of the traditional buildings of the United Kingdom, sponsors a tour each year for its members. The 2004 tour, coordinated through the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, was the groups first to America and focused on the British America regions of New England, the Mid-Atlantic and the Chesapeake. In New Garden Township, their itinerary included close examination of the Hayden, Reynolds and McCann houses as well as the New Garden Friends Meeting House. The three houses were documented through an in-depth survey of thirty of the Township's historic buildings by the University of Delaware and the Historical Commission.</p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt"><img src="bus.jpg" width="500" height="304"></p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt"><img src="porch.jpg" width="500" height="375"></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt">On the tour they mostly visited churches and museum houses that were either essentially as built or had been restored to a certain period. What interested the British researchers in New Garden Township was an opportunity to see 18th century buildings, which while enlarged and altered, had been continuously occupied. The researchers were interested in the ways the houses had been changed over time to either meet the owners' needs or to adapt to current fashions. University of Delaware researchers Bernie Herman and Jeroen van den Hurk showed the visitors evidence of how floors had been lowered, fireplaces removed or covered, stairways removed or turned, and how roof lines had been replaced over the centuries.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt">Probably the house they found most intriguing was the McCann House, a log house off of Buttonwood Road. Although they had heard of log houses, most had never seen one. Questions ranged from did early settlers sometimes place the logs in a vertical position, to did the builders remove the bark and square off the logs. The McCann house with its exposed log walls in the attic stairway gave the visitors a good chance for close examination.</p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt"><img src="mccann.jpg" width="500" height="334"></p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:206.8pt"><font size="2">The McCann House</font></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:17.65pt">The intensive documentation of New Garden Townships historic houses undertaken with the University of Delaware provided an unparalleled opportunity for the British contingent to gain an introduction to the remarkable architectural heritage of the Delaware Valley. The information packages for each of the sites provided the visitors with a brief narrative that summarized key architectural features, a plan that showed how the house grew and changed over time, and a documentary history that explained who owned, built, and lived in these dwellings.</p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:17.65pt"><img src="hayden.jpg" width="500" height="376"></p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:17.65pt"><font size="2">Visitors at the Hayden House</font></p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:17.65pt"><font size="2"><img src="reynolds.jpg" width="500" height="374"></font></p> <p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-pagination:none;text-indent:17.65pt"><font size="2">Queueing to see the Reynolds House</font></p> </body>