Like Middleton Place (see November 30, 2024 post), the original Stratford Hall East Garden dates to the mid-1700s. Though limited in scope, period records do offer some evidence as to the early appearance of both the East Garden and surrounding grounds, information bolstered by twentieth- and twenty-first-century archaeology.*
To understand the East Garden is first to appreciate its overall setting, which was visited by Society members during the 2005 annual meeting. Sited on a ridge and viewing the Potomac River, the ca. 1738 Stratford Hall great house and dependencies number among the finest of Virginia’s colonial-era buildings. Built as the tobacco plantation home of Thomas and Hannah Ludwell Lee, it was most likely their oldest, increasingly well-to-do, son Phillip Ludwell Lee and his enslaved workers who crafted a spot east of the great house into the gently sloped and walled falling garden, terminated by a ha-ha wall, seen today. In turn, their daughter Matilda (d. 1790) and husband Henry “Light Horse Harry” Lee doubtlessly made further improvements reflecting their political position and ambitions. The final Lee owner of the Stratford plantation lands was their son Henry Lee IV; after his death Stratford passed to Sommerville, Storke, and Stuart ownership successively.
A crucial garden moment followed Stratford Hall’s 1929 purchase by the Robert E. Lee Memorial Foundation, now the Robert E. Lee Memorial Association, RELMA. (Born at Stratford Hall in 1807, Robert E. Lee was the son of Harry Lee and second wife Ann Hill Carter). It was an acquisition for which historian and journalist Ethel Armes has been termed “the moving spirit.” Almost immediately the Garden Club of Virginia (GCV) agreed to undertake landscape restoration, and under GCV member Hetty Cary Harrison’s lead, they engaged well-respected Massachusetts landscape architect Arthur Shurcliff, who in 1930 led the first phase of excavation and drawing. Kept busy at Colonial Williamsburg, Shurcliff was soon followed by another “big name” of the era, Harvard professor Morley Jeffers Williams. Aided by Harvard student Charles C. Pinkney, Williams undertook further archaeology, plus study of other colonial-period sites. In 1932 he produced plans resulting in a recreated East Garden, along with other designs for grounds improvements.
Progress was rapid, and by 1934 layout was complete, with walls, ha-ha, and gates in place. Planting involved an extensive amount of boxwood, small and large, as can be seen in early photographs. Revealing Colonial Revival trends of the era, moreover, it was (to quote former GCV landscape architect Will Rieley) “almost totally invented,” aside from wall placement and terracing. So much boxwood and minimal shade proved problematic, and in the 1950s GCV landscape architect Alden Hopkins modified the Williams plan, putting in more trees and flowering plants while ordering much needed maintenance to the boxwood.
Subsequently, GCV landscape architects Rudy Favretti and Will Rieley offered attention as needed to the East Garden, but clearly the most important modern-times developments unfolded as 2010s interpretation questions led to fresh investigation. Led by archeologist Dennis Pogue, 2013 excavations provided sufficient evidence for reconfiguring the upper East Garden terrace more to its eighteenth-century appearance. RELMA and GCV again partnered, and GCV landscape architect Will Rieley developed a plan, following eighteenth-century exemplars, to bring Pogue’s findings and current understandings of colonial-age practices to a segment of the East Garden. New geometrical beds allowed for the co-mixing of ornamental plants, herbs, and vegetables, with yews and espaliered fruit providing verticality. The East Garden now allowed visitors to walk through a designed landscape instructive about actual colonial garden layouts in the upper section, while on the lower terraces they enjoyed a twentieth-century Colonial Revival experience.**
In summary, the Stratford Hall East Garden is of signal value to the study of southern garden history. This relates first to the involvement of Arthur Shurcliff, Morley Williams, and Alden Hopkins, who, again to quote Will Rieley, “were inventors of a new field of endeavor: the restoration of historic American landscapes.” Arguably, of even larger significance is the lesson on the tremendous role of women in the creation, rescuing, and reviving gardens and landscapes. This is exemplified by the women of RELMA and GCV, along with individual advocates and leaders such as Ethel Armes and Hetty Cary Harrison.
For further details, visit: https://www.stratfordhall.org/eastgarden/
*For early references to garden layout and plants, see: https://southerngardenhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Magnolia_WinterSpring_2004.pdf
**For more on recent garden work, see: https://southerngardenhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/Magnolia-NL-Summer-20-FINAL.pdf
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