Finally, the maze

Sunday October 6, 2013
Williamsburg Virginia

 

 

I’m anxious to get outside to this maze.

Finished with the palace tour, we take the path back to the rear gardens.  It’s such a lovely day and this is such a beautiful place.

 

 

 

The formal gardens with their severely shaped bushes/trees somehow make me feel like I’m in Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.   Are they the Mad Hatter’s Hat???

 

  

 

 

Opps, side tracked again!

 

I’m walking toward the maze, but then I get side tracked again.  Who are they?  And where are they going?

 

 

A rendezvous??

 

 

Ok so how can I follow them and find out where they are going and what they are doing without looking like I’m following them??

 

 

 

Actually,  I can’t so I walk through this lovely shaded tree arch still searching for the maze.

 

 

 

 

There don’t seem to be any maps of the grounds.

When we were here previously some years ago the palace tour was self guided and they provided maps of the grounds.  I didn’t see any maps this time so we are wandering around on our own looking for the maze.  Even though it would be easier to have a map and go right to it, it’s fun to just follow your nose and see what appears.

 

 

 

Side tracked again!

 

I know it’s not at the end of the main avenue.   At this point David decides he’s hungry and would like to eat lunch before the maze.

Well that’s OK since we haven’t found the maze,  we’ll look for a place to have a picnic.  That should be easier don’t you think?

 

 

David sees a path down to the water.  Looks like a great place for lunch.  As I’m following him, I look over and there “they” are, just to the right on the path around the pond.

 

 

 

 

So which way around the pond?  Left or right?

David turns right and walks past them on around the pond.  Good plan.   I’m thinking we’ll look for a bench on the other side since they are on this side.  Maybe then I can spy.

 

 

 

I get side tracked from my side track spying.

We find a nice spot which is near an exit out to one of the side streets where the car and the lunch are parked.  David volunteers to go get the lunch and leave me on snoop duty.  I accept but I don’t see anything or anyone until I look straight ahead of me and just beyond my foot at the pond’s edge is a great blue heron.

 

 

 

 

He’s stealthily fishing and catches a couple of things as I sit and watch.

   

 

I even get up and walk down the path a bit to get a different angle and he pays little attention.  He is clearly used to people.   This seems a bit of an unusual habitat for a great blue heron but then what do I know?

 

 

I’m so busy enjoying and watching him that I forget all about the foursome.   Where did they go?

The heron stays right there while we eat our lunch and when we finish we walk the rest of the way around the pond.

 

 

 

We’re back on the hunt for the maze.

 

There is a lovely bridge on the far end of the pond as we walk around.

 

 

We’ve made a complete circle when we arrive back at the path we took down to the pond in the first place.  The quartet has just disappeared.  I have no idea where they went.  

There is another path going up some stone steps just beyond so we take this hoping it leads to the maze and it does – sort of.

 

 

 

 

The path leads to “the mount’.

 

What is the mount?  Well it turns out it is a hill at the back of the property under which is the ice house.  But the steps lead to a viewing platform on top which faces back toward the palace and overlooks………..

You guessed it – THE MAZE.   We’ve found it!!

 

 

 

Before going back down to the foot of “the mount”, and on to the maze, we have to take the path around the mount, of course, so David can look into the ice house.

 

 

 

AT LAST, we can walk the maze.

 

It still takes a bit of looking but finally we do find the entrance to the maze.  I’m in the lead because I’m the kid in the group.

 

 

David follows along and then we come to the first choice.   We decide that I’ll go one way and he the other.  So, of course, I pick the way I think is best and off I go.

 

 

After a number of good moves and a couple of bad ones, I manage to make it to the center where I call to David and ask him how far away he is.   HA HA!!  

He does finally show up and takes this picture of me in the center as he comes in.

 

 

And I take this one of him.

 

 

 

Finding our way out is much easier.

 

 

 

The castle and its grounds are completely walled in. 

 

Hmm walled grounds and a castle full of guns and swords.  I guess this was a dangerous place to be.  Or somebody thought it was.

On the way up to the palace entrance we pass this interesting sitting spot.  I have to see what’s visible through “the window”.  And to do that they have conveniently placed a bench for me to stand on.  Not necessary for others but it does make it possible for me to see and to get a picture of the scene being framed here.

 

 

 

 

 

As we near the gate we see the cellar doors are open. 

Who can resist?   The main benefit to being vertically challenged is that I never bump my head.

 

 

The governor has well stocked cellars.

 

The capitol of the commonwealth was moved from Williamsburg to Richmond about the same time that the palace burned for the second time.  The current palace is an archeological recreation from numerous sources.  Its story is very interesting.  

 

I’ll let Colonial Williamsburg tell it.

 

This is taken from their website.

 

Government moved to Richmond, ending governor's residence

Thomas Jefferson succeeded Patrick Henry in office and residence. In 1779 he drew a floor plan of the Palace, perhaps with a view to remodeling. The government, however, moved the next year to Richmond, and nothing came of the plans.

The Palace served again as a hospital in the fall of 1781, this time for American soldiers wounded in the Battle of Yorktown. Some 156 of them, and two women, are buried in the garden.

Building destroyed by fire in December 1781

On December 22, 1781, a fire that may have begun in the basement destroyed the building. A Charleston newspaper account said:

"Last Saturday night about eleven o'clock the palace in the City of Williamsburg, which is supposed to have been set on fire by some malicious person, was in three hours burnt to the ground. This elegant building has been for sometime past a continental hospital, and upwards of one hundred sick and wounded soldiers were in it when the fire was discovered, but by the timely exertions of a few people, only one perished in the flames."

The government sold the bricks – which were being stolen – and the advance buildings in 1782. When Dunmore's grandson Sir Charles Augustus Murray visited in 1835, he wrote, "The centre of the palace where the governor resided has long since fallen down, and even the traces of its ruins are no more to be seen." In 1862, Union soldiers pulled down the advance buildings so officers at Fort Magruder east of town might have bricks to build chimneys for their huts.

In ruins from a fire, the site passed to the College of William & Mary

The site passed to the College of William and Mary after the war. Two school buildings stood on the Palace grounds, just in front of the buried foundations, when The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation purchased the property in 1928. Archaeological investigation began at 8 a.m., June 30, 1930. Nearly two years of work uncovered the original footings, the cellars, debris from the fire, and a section of original wall.
The artifacts, Jefferson's drawings, General Assembly records, and a copperplate engraving discovered in England's Bodleian Library in 1929 were employed in faithful reconstruction of the original buildings. They opened as an exhibition on April 23, 1934.

 

 

Archeology is like hunting for clues in a mystery.

 

We come upon a piece of the original foundation wall left for us to see.  

 

  

 

David always has to try every single closed door anywhere he goes to see if it will open.

 

 

With a lock this size, I would guess not. Makes you wonder what of value is hidden inside doesn’t it?

 

 

 

Plenty of wine and other spirits are here.

 

 

 

There are two more out buildings to see before we leave the Palace grounds.

 

We leave the cellars and pass by the smoke house which has slabs of meat hanging inside.  I stick my head inside.  No pictures of those thanks.  

And then we find the palace kitchen which of course, after all the fires, is a separate building.

 

The cook is finished for the day and is polishing her copper kettle when we arrive.

 

 

 

She tells us about all the various dishes she has prepared and it all appears to be food that was cooked today.  Wish we had come by earlier to see these things being prepared.   You just can’t be everywhere at the right time here.  There are so many things to see.

 

 

 

My favorite section is the desserts end of the table.

 

 

Well look who is in the kitchen garden.  What a surprise.

 

 

 

Can’t say that I have ever seen a heron in a vegetable garden.  Is he really going to eat something here?  Or what is he doing?

 

 

 

 

I watch him for quite some time.  He walks into the rows but David is leaving so I have to carry on without finding out what he’s going to do or what he’s looking for.  That’s two curiosities unsolved for today.  Where did the 3 gentlemen and the lady go?  And what is this heron doing?

 

 

 

 

But this is our last day here and we have only a little time left to explore so I leave the mysteries unsolved.

Is it a fortress or a palace??

Sunday Afternoon October 6, 2013
Williamsburg, Virginia

 

 

It’s been a pretty exciting morning what with the Governor dismissing the burgesses and the near storming of the palace by a mob.

You can read about our surprising morning here if you have not.  I want to go back and walk the maze if the palace grounds are open but think we might need to let things calm down before we try.

 

Another fun task from my past.  Basket weaving doesn’t require a loom.

 

 

We head away from the palace.  On the way back down the Palace Green toward Duke of Gloucester Street I see Prince George Street with the Wythe house on the corner.  Just down that street is the basketmaker.  It’s another of the crafts that we did some of at the farm so I want to go take a look.  Basket weaving, any weaving, is a “chore” I really enjoy.

That’s a huge white oak basket she’s making.  Mine were of white oak as well but none that big.  More like the ones on the bench in front of her.

 

 

These are really beautifully done small market baskets or picking baskets.  The larger one like she’s making are for corn or clothing.  I wish I’d asked her what that specific basket was going to be used for and whether it would have strap handles so it could be worn on one’s back.

I made many of these smaller ones although my favorite was the egg basket and I don’t see one of those here.

 

 

 

 

There does seem to be a kitty basket.

Actually we are told this is SIR Thomas Gray ESQ and this is his home so he chooses whichever basket he prefers.

 

 

Basketry is another form of weaving done with grasses, vines, bark and splits from trees.  It too is a very soothing craft.  Although many of the materials used for baskets are soaked to make them pliable, as is the cane used for weaving chair seats, white oak splits are not soaked.  They are pliable as they are if split correctly.

 

 

 

 

Each area of the country uses its native materials for baskets. 

We’ve seen ash baskets in Maine and reed and sweet grass baskets along  the southeast coast.  Long leaf pine needles make lovely baskets.  Even Kudzu actually makes a beautiful basket.

 

 

She uses a special knife to help curve the spines.

 

And a beater to pull the weave down toward the base.

       

 

I wonder if things have calmed down at the palace by now. 

 

After our time with the basketmaker and Mr. Gray, we decide to check back at the palace and see.  I guess the Governor has gone somewhere because they are giving tours.   We make our way around to the side entrance to the grounds thinking we’d better get a tour while we can.   You just never know what’s going to happen around here.

 

 

Of course we can’t enter through the front door so our tour guide takes us around to the entrance into the Butler’s wing.

 

 

 

 

 

From a period map on the wall, we learn a little bit about this area which the Governor is questionably governing.

 

 

 

You can see that Virginia included all of Ohio and like North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, reached straight out to the west.

 

 

 

The Butler’s office has tall narrow windows with inside wooden shutters.  Light is streaming in through the window.   What a wonderful window seat.

 

 

He is the single most important staff member.

 

 

  

 

Is it a palace or a fortress??

From here we go into the great entrance hall which has the feel of a dark medieval castle.  The walls are lined from top to bottom with swords and guns.  I have never seen so many weapons in one place in my life.

 

 

There are multiple panels around the room with swords just like this.  26 swords in silver and 22 with bronze handles in each panel.

 

 

Eighteen flintlock rifles on the walls between each of the sword panels.  The Governor’s palace is virtual arsenal.

 

 

 

 

 

We head upstairs, the walls all the way up are covered in rifles and swords.

 

 

Governor Dunmore and wife live here with six of their seven children. 

 

We visit the bedroom of two of the daughters first.  I wonder what they think living in this house full of weapons.

Their governess’s bed is the first thing we see.   She sleeps in the room with them.

 

 

The two daughters share their bed.  Children sharing beds was a common practice at all levels of society.  The fewer children per bed, the wealthier the family.

 

   

 

 

I am really admiring the architectural details in this house. 

 

Look at the multiple pilasters to the right of the fireplace and the ceiling cornices.  The fireplace has delft tiles.  I wish we had been allowed to stay longer in each of the rooms but another group was hot on our heels.

I recall years ago when the tour was “self” guided.  There were guides in most rooms to answer questions but you could stay as little or as long as you liked.

 

 

 

 

It appears the young misses will be returning to dress for the evening.

 

 

 

We move next into the governor’s wife’s sitting room.  Here she spent time with her children, lady guests and her staff as she performed her duties.

 

 

The baby’s crib is in this room.

 

 

 

We return downstairs through all the guns and swords to the morning room. Breakfast anyone?

 

 

 

 

Music rooms are usually my favorite rooms in huge homes.

This one has a beautiful spinet and lovely music stands.  Here dances would be held.  I am surprised at the bright colors of the walls and the rugs.   I like it.   And again the deep set windows and window seats.

 

 

Crystal chandeliers, an elegant doorway with gorgeous details on it and the moldings.

 

Musicians would play for palace entertainments.

 

 

But today the dining room wins the prize.

The last room, the formal dining room, is my favorite.  Look carefully at the window details and all of the moldings.  Lovely!  I’ll show you some close ups of them in a bit.

 

 

 

What a great cast iron stove.  Wish I could have had one like this for the front living room parlor at the farm.   Of course we’d have gotten cooked to death as this dining room is four or five times the size.

 

 

I couldn’t help myself in taking pictures of these beautiful details.
Gold leaf.  Good grief!   Did you notice it in the pictures above?

 

Who does artistic work like this anymore???

 

 

 

 

Not as overwhelming as Newport but grand just the same for over 100 years before the Gilded Age.   Our guide escorts us out and answers many questions.  I had heard that the Governor’s wife thought the house “far too small and not very fine”, which he confirmed.  Apparently it was a step down from their two palaces in England.  HA!

 

       

 

As we leave, he reassures us that the gardens are open and I definitely want to find the maze.   But that will have to wait for another post.