Arthur Allen House, “Bacon’s Castle” | Surry County, Virginia

Bacon’s Castle offers one the most notable garden archaeology examples of recent times. Society members have read about it in two Magnolia articles, including a 1988 piece by lead archaeologist Nick Luccketti. Many were also enlightened by a 1987 Restoring Southern Gardens and Landscapes conference talk by the Garden Club of Virginia’s (GCV) landscape architect, Rudy Favretti. Immediately before a May 1994 Williamsburg annual meeting visit, moreover, Ann Crossman of the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) offered further details. Thus, in typical SGHS fashion, we came to the site well grounded.

This author first visited Bacon’s Castle in the 1970s, and at that time the Jacobean-style house and several early outbuildings were the main attractions. (APVA acquired the Surry County property only in 1972.) Though it is near Williamsburg on the north and Newport News on the east, Bacon’s Castle is separated from both by the wide James River. Access comes via a drive down the south side of the James or by ferry from Jamestown.

Charles II reigned in England in 1665 when dendrochronological study indicates the original home was constructed. Built for merchant and tobacco planter Arthur Allen, the dwelling had easy access to river-borne transportation. It was, however, never visited by Nathaniel Bacon, the leader of the eponymous 1676-77  “rebellion” against Royal Governor Berkeley. For several months, however, Bacon’s followers sheltered there, Arthur Allen II later receiving compensation for damage and theft that had occurred. Naming the Allen House “Bacon’s Castle” possibly began early, though this first appeared in print in the late eighteenth-century.     

Garden archaeology came in 1983 when GCV funded the APVA study of an area southwest of the house where old drawings and infrared photos had pointed to a nineteenth-century garden. Under Nick Luccketti’s direction and the overall guidance of leading Virginia archeologists Bill Kelso and Ivor Noel Hume, excavations turned up evidence of a garden actually from the 1680s, therefore dating relatively soon after house construction. At that exciting point, GCV agreed to underwrite further archaeology. Continuing for over two years, that work’s fundamental discovery was an area 340 feet by 195 feet marked by a wide central north-south sand path which was subdivided by two sand cross paths, thus comprising six large beds. 

Along with this, moreover, evidence of several structures came to light, including a two-room building on the east, twenty by thirty-two feet in size; a brick forcing wall (for protecting tender plants), running along the north end of the garden; and alcoves at the west end of each cross path. Of the large building, Luccketti notes that its connection to the garden is supported by the “scores of bell jar fragments” discovered nearby. At the forcing wall moreover, Luccketti found that the central path ended in a semi-circle where signs appeared of a feature that was possibly a sundial or similar large garden ornament. He theorized that two alcoves, moreover, were fitted out as exedras, three-sided structures which would have accommodated benches and other comforts for those who might have sat and been shaded there to enjoy the garden.

In total, the evidence pointed to a pleasure garden arrangement for the Allen family such as those enjoyed by their fellow subjects of the Stuart kings in England. Interpreting this space longer than a football field offered challenges to APVA and GCV. In 1988, Rudy Favretti assumed a guiding role in his capacity as GCV landscape architect, his initial scheme featuring vegetables in the two central beds, while the north and south pair of beds became grass panels. Favretti specified a variety of trees and fruit trees around the perimeter, while the plats adjacent to the forcing wall included nursery beds, espaliered fruit trees, and cold frames. As archaeological studies had found no evidence of an enclosure other than the north wall, he called for a hawthorn hedge along the west and south sides of the garden. At the west end of each cross path the hedge formed a square-cornered “U” to allow for recreating the two exedras indicated by archaeological analysis. 

Today the site is operated by Preservation Virginia, the name being changed from APVA in 2009, and it is primarily open on weekends. The six large beds are all in turf now, planting of vegetables, fruits, and ornamentals being found only along the forcing wall.  As during the author’s first visit, Bacon’s Castle remains a rural site, surrounded by wide farm fields, while nearby creeks and runs are bordered by swaths of forest.

Finally, the Garden Club of Virginia must again be singled out and given due credit for their work across the state, in this instance, of course, for their commitment to recovering and interpreting Virginia’s earliest identified pleasure garden. While not the first, this will not be the last Gardens post detailing the good things they have done to aid our access to and understanding of the Old Dominion’s historic designed landscapes. 

*******************************************************************

For further discussion, along with images and garden plans, see: https://preservationvirginia.org/bacons-castle-garden-and-historic-garden-week/

For Nicholas Luccketti’s 1988 article, visit:  https://southerngardenhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/v-.-5-no-.-2-Autumn-1988.pdf#page=1

See also: https://southerngardenhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/V-.-2-no-.-4-Spring-1986.pdf#page=7

For further details on the Allen family and Bacon’s Rebellion, see:

https://www.nps.gov/jame/learn/historyculture/a-brief-history-of-bacons-castle.htm

Discussion of Rudy Favretti’s RSGL talk on the Bacon’s Castel gardens is at:

https://southerngardenhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/v-.4no-.-3-Winter1988.pdf#page=15

Recommended reading: Margaret Page Bemiss, Historic Virginia Gardens: Preservation Work of the Garden Club of Virginia, 1975-2007, “Bacon’s Castle,” 3-15.