Thursday, July 26, 2018

An epic hunting tour of the US, part IV: into Virginia!

Virginia. A name that sparks a flicker of excitement in any fox-hunter’s heart, a name that has meant good sport since the time of George Washington, a name that means old turf and coops and stone walls backed by the Blue Ridge Mountains. It is the most English of American states, with the oldest pub in the US, the Red Fox Inn of Middleburg, and porticoed stone country houses amid a patchwork of green fields. A list of inhabitants past and present is a Who’s Who of hunting, from the 6th Lord Fairfax who first brought foxhounds to these shores, through the first President to Jackie Kennedy and the art collector Paul Mellon. Now, its 25 registered packs are followed by surgeons and titans of industry, interior designers and artists, musicians and hoteliers. The loss of an arm or advancing years are no barriers to attendance: once a Virginia fox-hunter, always a Virginia fox-hunter.

Virginia!

I drove from Alabama to Virginia on a damp, drizzly day that obscured the mountains around Chattanooga in Tennessee, rendering them more Foggy than Smoky. By the time I reached the ‘lovers’ state’, it was dark but clear, very dark indeed amid the tall red and chestnut oaks of the Shenandoah national park. I wound down and down via a series of hairpin bends, the view of hunting country from which must be spectacular in daylight, and finally reached the undulating road that leads to the home of Jake Carle III, long-time master and huntsman of the Keswick, hound expert and raconteur.

Jake Carle with assorted canines

George Washington, ‘father of his country’, was an avid fox-hunter, but it was with his early life that my first day in Virginia was concerned. The legend of the Cherry Tree, in which the eight-year-old George chopped down his father’s favourite tree and earned a reputation for honesty by swiftly owning up (although, strangely, not for being a mean vandal), is almost certainly apocryphal, but if it did happen, it was at Ferry Farm on the banks of the Rappahannock in Fredericksburg. A great friend of mine in San Francisco is descended from the Strothers, the family who owned the land before the Washingtons, and he linked me up with Bill Garner, president of the George Washington Foundation. Bill and his colleagues Meghan and Jessica showed me around Ferry Farm and Kenmore, another Washington family home, and I was captivated.

The newly arisen Ferry Farm
Courtesy of  The George Washington Foundation 
and Eric Kuchar of Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker Architects

Elegant, very English, Kenmore

Nothing of Ferry Farm remained before archaeologists got to work a few years ago. In 2003, they began the search for the foundations and, in 2008, confirmed that they had identified the remains of the long-sought-after house where Washington grew up.  Excavation has revealed the plan of the whole farm, plus Indian arrowheads, fragments of pottery, Tally-ho cufflinks and more that tell the story of the land over thousands of years. Now, the house, together with the corrals that held animals and the huts where farmworkers and slaves lived, are being rebuilt by hand, down to the lime-based plaster mixed with animal hair, scalloped shingles and beautifully crafted corner cabinet. The work is superb, from the smooth banister to the solid wooden plank that locks the back door. From the river side, where the ground drops away, the entrance to the cellar reveals the original stone and a single large block of earth, left as a gift for future archaeological students.

Ferry Farm and its agricultural surroundings

The beautifully crafted interior, an educated guess at what 
George Washington would have seen as a child

Visitors to Ferry Farm will be able to touch everything, to experience what it was like to live in a house in the new colony, at a time when land was still be surveyed and Fredericksburg a mere cluster of houses. When the ferry, just upstream from the Washingtons’ land, yielded a steady stream of travellers, much to the annoyance of the family. When ships plied the deep waters of the Rappahanock and there were fortunes to be made by anyone with zeal and determination: like George Washington himself. His childhood and teenage years were spent in a new country, a time when he could explore and speculate, forge relationships and secure land, learning from a pioneering people whose spirit gave him the spark he needed to found the United States of America. Ferry Farm is a far cry from the magnificent porticoed mansion of Mount Vernon that was his last home, but it was a vital part of his life and now, thanks to the George Washington Foundation, it will live again.

The view to the Rappahanock River, at the edge of the grass.
Fredericksburg is visible in winter, when there are no leaves on the trees!

Everything, from the banisters to the doors, has been made
fresh, and can thus be touched and experienced

Bad timing doesn’t begin to describe the story of Kenmore, home of George Washington’s sister Betty and her husband, Fielding Lewis. In the mid 18th century, England and all things English was the height of fashion, with furniture, silverware, glassware and porcelain imported and displayed to impress the neighbours. Lewis was a successful merchant and patriot who owned a fleet of ships dedicated to bringing in the most stylish and sought-after goods from the Old Country, and Kenmore became a showcase for his family’s English affinities, a way of proclaiming to the world that they were akin to aristocrats, or at least the upper middle class. The house itself is a perfect Georgian box, red-brick and perfectly proportioned with an elegant portico and strikingly painted hall. Even the servant’s passage was painted where it could be glimpsed by visitors.

A perfect Georgian box. It could almost be in Hampshire

But the tragedy of Kenmore is that it was completed too late. Only a year after Betty could sit back and reflect on her possession of the most elegant house in Fredericksburg, the War of Independence broke out and suddenly George IV tankards were being chucked out of windows onto rubbish heaps across Virginia. Kenmore and the trade that had sustained it were valueless almost overnight. No longer was it the embodiment of good taste, but instead a symbol of lost loyalties.

Kenmore: out of date almost as soon as it was completed

Nearly a century later, another war was to batter Kenmore. Fredericksburg was the frontline in the American Civil War, with the Confederates firing from the south and Union soldiers from the north. Cannonballs and holes from both sides can still be seen in the walls and roof. The house was pressed into use as a hospital, with the dining room serving as the operating theatre and stretchers laid out on the lawn. A gradual decline ensued after the war, until the threat of demolition from a Mr E. G. Heflin who wanted to build flats on the space in the 1920s galvanised the women of Fredericksburg, led by the redoubtable Kate Waller Barrett of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, to buy and save the house. Local grandee Emily White Fleming and her daughter, Annie, with Mrs Barrett, sent hundreds of letters asking for donations and swiftly raised the money, with $1,000 from none other than (the brilliantly named) Col Isaac Newton Lewis, descendant of Fielding Lewis. It has been open to the public ever since, hosting Presidents and First Ladies, and, since 2001, has undergone a top-notch restoration.

Cannonballs have been inserted in the holes to remind of the effects
of the conflict, and there are many more scars of war

The jewels of the work are two elements that showed off the Lewises’ English connections best. In the dining room, the carpet has been newly woven to an 18th-century pattern, with an excellent chance that it was the exact design used. The dining-room floorboards were ripped up after the Civil War, too soaked in blood to keep, which made the restorer’s job more difficult. In most rooms, carpet tacks on the floorboards could indicate if the room had been carpeted, but there were none left – except for one, on the threshold. Expert examination revealed tacks embedded in the wood, which showed that, firstly, the carpet had been wall-to-wall. Secondly, tiny fragments of carpet fibres were left, in a striking dark-red colour. It was reckoned to be a Wilton carpet, made by the (now) Grosvenor Wilton carpet company of Kidderminster in England that still exists. A terrible fire in the 19th century destroyed all records before 1790, but enough remained to show that only three designs of the period used that colour. Analysis of the paint on the walls revealed the room’s colour scheme, and the carpet chosen and woven accordingly. The whole design feels so fitting that I have no doubt they are correct.

The drawing room with its restored Kidderminster carpet

The Kenmore drawing room

You have to look up for the second spectacular element. Letters and accounts reveal a mysterious Stucco Man, who came from England with the plasterers to create the gorgeous plaster ceiling with its foliage and circular motifs. It seems likely that he was Italian, with a difficult-to-spell name that was never used, but he was so good that his plasterwork is the crowning glory of both Kenmore and Mount Vernon, George Washington’s later and sumptuous home. No one knows who exactly he was and where he came from, but Stucco Man’s work is unique in America, the fashion for ornate plasterwork swept away on a tide of anti-English feeling.

The gorgeous ceiling

There are dozens of stories within the walls of Kenmore, from Betty Lewis’s writing desk that was discovered in an auction in Minneapolis and now stands in its original place to the canoe that hangs in the attic. It was once owned by the son of a late-19th-century Kenmore family who was crippled from the waist down and used the canoe to improve his upper-body strength. It was he who persuaded his father to let him restore the plaster ceiling, in a sorry state after the War, and painstakingly replaced lost pieces with plaster of Paris. George Washington’s grand Mount Vernon home draws the crowds, but if you’re in Virginia, don’t miss visiting this exquisitely restored gem of a house.

Betty Lewis's writing desk, discovered at auction
and restored to its original place

If you see this view as you drive into Fredericksburg, stop!

Grey skies gave way to blustery blue the following day, the clouds dispersed by gale-force winds that tore down trees and powerlines across the north-eastern US. No internet and no phone thus meant an enforced, and welcome, day of swapping hunting stories with Jake, plus an abortive trip to Horse Country in Warrenton – naturally, no power meant the hunting-clothing-household-all-good-things store was closed. The wind meant even my low saloon car was buffeted off its course and I held my breath every time we went past a tree, which was often. We were luckier than most: we got power back that night, but most people were reliant on bottled water and generators for days.

Jake snapping the Bull Run meet on a blustery, sunny day

Worst of all, most hunts were unable to get out on Saturday, but Bull Run is made of sterner stuff. Half an hour south of Warrenton we drew up at the kennels on a cold clear day, the wind still chilly but no longer threatening to throw us flat on our faces. Leaving early in case of log-forced detours, we arrived in time to see the latest additions to the Bull Run kennels, born the night before! Little squirmy bundles, pure cuteness. Soon afterwards, rigs started to arrive and a decent crowd gathered to cry ‘yes’ in response to Mike Long MFH’s call of ‘Are we going to have fun today?’ Being English, I can’t help but cringe a little at such openers, but no one can deny the enthusiasm. And we did have fun! Scenting wasn’t brilliant, but we had some good music and jumps, up on a wooded hill just south of the kennels called, grandly, Cedar Mountain. One run took us out of the woods and onto smooth turf, to an upright rail more like an ad hoc British jump than a pristine Virginia coop. We marked soon afterwards, huntsman Charles Montgomery blowing to ground with enthusiasm and praising his smart crossbred hounds, who lapped up his words.

Mike Long gives a cheery welcome before we set off up Cedar Mountain

Happy first field!

Marking to ground

Praise from a satisfied huntsman

Off again!

It was jolly steep in places, which proved too much for my handsome Avalanche. He was a bit like a flying sofa, with smooth paces and a powerful jump, but wasn’t quite fit enough to gallop up hills. When one of his shoes spread, his owner Amy Savell immediately leapt off her Friesian-Morgan cross (yes, really), Tucker, and chucked me on him instead so I could carry on. Typical hunting hospitality, this time from a fellow English girl! In one of those extraordinary coincidences, it turned out we had both worked for IPC Media in the same office in London, King’s Reach Tower. Amy had worked in IT on the third floor and I had been on the 21st floor with Country Life. Much reminiscing about the local hostelries ensued…

Former (almost colleague) Amy Savell!

Another one to ground! This time a view from bay Tucker

Looking back at Cedar Mountain

With beautiful bright sunshine and Tucker’s ears never less than pricked, great company in field master Jay and assorted members, it was a lovely day, not, perhaps, a vintage Virginia outing, but an enjoyable start to my sojourn in the state. The wind threatened to blow away our bowls of chilli at the tailgate, but few people wanted to leave with any celerity. Smiles all round!

In at the end

Hacking in, ears still pricked

Back home! Thank you Amy, first for Avalanche, then for Tucker,
then for taking this picture! 


An adventure of a different kind was mine recently: galloping across Dartmoor with Liberty Trails. Simply the most glorious landscape, coupled with great horses, company and food! 
Email info@gatewaytoengland.com if you'd like to experience it for yourself.


Views galore, and my intrepid guide Elaine Prior

Me on the fabulous Blackie

The Prince Hall Hotel - a perfect place for lunch - and gin!