Virginia Architecture in the Seventeenth Century — Background and Themes

Recurring Structural Motifs

Throughout the excerpts, Forman returns to a handful of architectural details that he treats as diagnostic signatures. One is the punched brass key escutcheon from the “Bin House” at Jamestown, a small artifact that he measures precisely (2⅝ inches long) and uses to evoke the material culture of early building. Another is the heart-shaped shield with crudely chiselled volutes on a wooden Ionic capital, which he compares to ancient Greek prototypes—a leap that underscores his training in fine arts. He also highlights roof shingling with dormers and “clumsy Jacobean brickwork” on the front porch of “The Green Spring,” as described in a watercolor by Benjamin Henry Latrobe. These recurring motifs—hardware, carved ornament, brickwork—serve as touchstones for identifying regional and period characteristics.

The Cross-House and the Rural Dwelling

Forman devotes a separate essay to the cross-house, which he calls “outstandingly medieval in design and construction—with a bit here and there of Jacobean trimming.” He presents it as the last development of the rural dwelling, branching off from the main stream of country house evolution. The cross-house plan, with its intersecting gables, is a structural type that he traces through foundations and floor plans. He contrasts it with the “double-parlor” dwelling of “The Green Spring,” where the hall stood between two parlors—an English derivative. The floor plan of that mansion, based on work by Kocher, Waterman, and Dimmick, shows a very unusual room arrangement that resembles an Elizabethan “E”-plan, with rear “cells” or “outshuts.” Forman is careful to note that his sketch of the entrance front is conjectural, but he believes it reveals the unique character of the edifice.

Town Dwellings and Row Houses

Forman draws a sharp distinction between rural and town dwellings, arguing that the need to crowd houses along streets produced a substantially different type. At Jamestown, developers built “sardine-packed row dwellings,” paid for in English currency. Inside James Fort, the first settlers erected streets of “settled” houses that were necessarily contiguous because of the cramped triangular palisade. Forman criticizes a contemporary oil painting of James Fort for showing houses not touching one another, when in fact they were forced to be row homes. He cites a 1614 construction of three large storehouses joined together in length about 120 feet and extending 40 feet in breadth. The “Governor’s House” or “Country House,” depicted in the Ambler Manuscripts, is an early example of a row dwelling, situated outside the fort on the “fourth ridge.” Its probable date lies in the 1620s, and the manuscript drawing is crude but informative.

Evidence from Foundations and Artifacts

Forman’s method relies heavily on excavated foundations and small finds. At “The Green Spring,” recent excavations uncovered brick footings of a pre-Berkeley building, partly covered by Sir William Berkeley’s later structure. This stratigraphic evidence allows Forman to infer the sequence of construction. He also uses artifacts like the brass key escutcheon and the carved Ionic capital to date and characterize buildings. The capital, with its raised heart-shaped shield and volutes, reminds him of ancient Greek wooden capitals with rough volutes—a comparison that suggests a vernacular survival of classical forms. Forman’s approach is that of an archaeologist-architect: he reads the ground and the object as texts, supplementing the scant standing remains. He acknowledges that much is conjectural, but he insists that the available data, when combined with knowledge of British precedents, can produce a reliable outline.

Forman’s study is best approached as a detective’s reconstruction: he pieces together fragments—a foundation here, a manuscript drawing there, a brass escutcheon—to infer the whole. Readers should attend to his careful qualifications (“conjectural,” “probably,” “with grains of allowance”) and his habit of comparing Virginia examples to British and classical prototypes. The book rewards those who follow the evidence as he presents it, rather than expecting a comprehensive survey of intact buildings.