The "Cross-House" in New Kent Pt III

 Today on our architectural dive into Seventeenth Century New Kent we look at Foster's Castle from the Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory (see bottom) 

Foster's Castle is located in the sparsely populated north·west section of New Kent County. The building stands amid cultivated fields whose limits, now as in the seventeenth century, are formed by the Pamunkey River to the north, marshland to the east and west, and irregular terrain to the south. Although the building has sustained considerable alteration, most of the exterior fabric has survived, and the original appearance of the house is obvious.

The T-shaped brick building, constructed as one or one-and-a-half stories with two-story central projection at the front, is similar to neighboring Criss Cross. The main body of the house was raised to a full two stories with a low pitched roof in 1873, and window openings were altered. The original brickwork, that had been whitewashed prior to the alteration, contrasts with the dark red brickwork-used to fill in window openings and raise the walls. The old steep roof line can be seen on the interior of the end walls, where the nineteenth century masonry is not as thick as the original work.

The earlier roof is said to have had four dormer windows; these may have been rare seventeenth-century examples or they may have been later additions. Except for three small first-floor end windows, whose arched openings arc original, but whose frames and sash appear to date from the early nineteenth century, all window openings have been altered. Both front and back walls were pierced by two large openings that had to be partially. filled in before the 1873 windows could be added. Each of the four openings (one now·· destroyed or obscured by a mid-twentieth century addition to the back) must have held a series of perhaps three vertical windows, probably casement with leaded panes. The filling in at the sill and lintel levels of all visible window openings may represent evidence of an architectural treatment similar to that seen in the window surrounds on the second floor of Bacons-Castle in Surry County. The main entrance to the house is, as it was originally, through the two-story projection. The two side windows on the first floor of the projection and the three windows on the second level have been slightly relocated, but they are in the same general position, and are of approximate size of the originals. An interesting detail, now surviving only in outline, was the round window in the gable of the porch chamber. 

The treatment of the string course is a notable exterior feature of the house, and there are period parallels in England and Virginia. Although partially covered by a modern porch, it can be seen that the two course thick stringer wraps around the two-story projection between first and second floors, breaking upward at a right angle above the doorway to emphasize that centralized feature. The same motif was used on the west wall of Carter's Creek in Gloucester County, and one is also seen on Criss Cross' projection, while a more elaborate version embellishes the entrance to Bacon's Castle. Unlike Criss Cross, the brick gable of the projection survives here, and its base is marked by another two-course thick stringer. Also unlike Criss Cross, Foster's Castle's end chimneys are interior, and the unbroken end walls are marked by a stringer between the first floor and garret levels. The chimney stacks are rebuilt, at least above ridge level.

The brickwork exhibits an unusual selection of bonds. The bond of the front (south) wall and two-story projection above the watertable is with glazed headers, all corner headers and some closers being glazed.

 This Flemish bond is the most carefully finished brickwork on the house, although all the masonry is relatively crude. The back and end walls are laid in Flemish cross bond alternating rows of stretchers and stretcher/ headers. Below the watertable, a mixture of bonds occurs: English on the west wall, predominantly Flemish cross bond on the east wall and part of the porch projection, and an unusual bond on the north and parts of the south wall comprised of alternating rows of stretchers, with the non-stretcher rows alternating between headers and stretcher/headers.

The interior was altered prior to the raising of the roof. One now enters from the enclosed porch chamber into a central stair hall, although the original plan may have resembled Criss Cross, where entrance from the porch is directly into the larger of two first floor rooms. The stair in the central hall appears to date from the beginning of the nineteenth century, although it retains some earlier forms. The stair consists of a short run, landing with quarter-turn, and the main run to the second floor.

The rather heavily-molded hand rail is supported by square balusters and posts. The cabinetry of the stair is a pleasing example of circa 1800 work, with vertical raised panels and sawn brackets. First floor mantels, in the east and west rooms exhibit pilasters and reeding typical of about the same period, but brackets supporting shelves above place their date at circa 1830-40. Doors vary in style and date, being contemporary with both the stair and mantels.

The basement, which is excavated only under the hall and east room, is reached by an exterior door in the cast wall. The opening may be original, although the door is not.

Colonel Joseph Foster is believed to have built the Castle between 1685 and 1690 although the loss of New Kent County records in the War Between the States makes definite attribution difficult. Foster was a first generation English emigrant, coming from Newport, Southampton. He represented New Kent County as a burgess in 1688, 1696, and 1700-1702, and was a county sheriff, justice, and lieutenant-colonel of the militia. He was appointed vestryman of Saint Peters Parish in 1690 and Church Warden in 1692 and he acted as supervisor of the construction of the present Saint Peters in 1701-1703. Foster died about 1715, leaving issue.

Later owners of the house were Mrs. Maria Brumley and William Payne Waring. The 1863 Gilmer Confederate-map of New Kent labels Foster's Castle as "Brumley,”(see below) and shows four buildings there, one next to the existing, house and two just to the south-east, across the present farm road. The property was purchased by Dr. J. C. Gregory in 1872 and he altered the house in the next year. The Gregory family still owns and occupies the house.

Foster's Castle shares with nearby Criss Cross, the Mathew Jones House in Newport News, and Bacon's Castle in Surry County the distinction of being one of Virginia's four surviving Tudor-Stuart style structures with porch projections. Such houses, distinguished by two-story single bay entrance projections in the center of the facade appear to represent a major seventeenth and very early-eighteenth century Virginia building form. Foster's Castle, with its interesting masonry architectural features is a rare survival of this distinctive and once-widespread form.

                                                                    E.A.C.

 -Historic American Buildings Survey Inventory, 1958 Federal Library of Congress

"The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) is the nation's first federal preservation program, begun in 1933. As such, it established methodologies that are now standard practice within the field such as the surveying and listing of historic sites and the creation of documentation for public benefit. It was founded through a unique private-public partnership with the National Park Service (NPS), Library of Congress (LC), and the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to record America's architectural heritage. Creation of the program was motivated primarily by the perceived need to mitigate the negative effects of rapidly vanishing architectural resources upon our built environment, history, and culture."

                                 (see above)

The "Cross-House" in New Kent

Some locally relevant passages from The Architecture of The Old South: The Medieval Style 1585-1850 by Henry Chandlee Forman 

 

 THE CROSS-HOUSE IN VIRGINIA 

IT WAS a comparatively simple matter to change a hall-and-parlor house, or one of central-passage type, to a cruciform structure. An enclosed entrance porch was placed on the front and a stair tower, or other kind of wing, at the rear — and there it was, the culmination of the development of the Virginia country house in the seventeenth century. Even so, it is not necessarily true that the more typical dwellings were all erected first, and all cross-edifices later. But indications are that known examples of the cruciform class average together a much later date than, for instance, the Thoroughgood House. It therefore appears that the cross-house, by its very complex nature, did not originate first, as has been recently suggested. 

The entrance porch or vestibule, and the stair tower, were pure English medieval features, and it is a pity that at least three out of seven known structures have been badly mutilated in the process of time, and that two have been completely razed from their foundations. Even in Maryland, the most interesting of the larger plantation houses, cruciform Bond Castle, was pulled down to make room for an ugly farm structure. 

In England the cross-dwelling must have been derived from the parish church, and may have carried a religious connotation. To declare that it had such a meaning in Virginia and Maryland would be a stretch of fancy but who can tell what was in the mind of the Southern planter when designing a house on a cross? The colonists of the seventeenth century were, by and large, a deeply religious people. 

We know cruciform architecture in Virginia best through these seven sites: Bacon’s Castle in Surry County; ruined Malvern Hill in Henrico County; the demolished Third State House¹ at Jamestown, as well as the destroyed Fourth State House² on the same site; the razed Turkey Island dwelling, home of the well-known Randolph family in Henrico County; Foster’s Castle and Christ’s Cross in New Kent County; and lastly, the partially ravaged, original Matthew Jones House in Warwick County. 

 . . .

The two most interesting cross-dwellings in Virginia, built in the late seventeenth century, are Foster’s Castle, known as “The Castle,” and Christ’s Cross, called “Criss Cross” for short. Both stand in New Kent County and were erected about the same rime: the former by Colonel Joseph Foster probably between 1685 ^^d 1690, and the latter by George Poindexter about 1690.^

The interest in Foster’s Castle lies chiefly for us in the exterior. Now much altered, the habitation was T-shaped in plan and comprised a story and loft with a two-story enclosed vestibule. The gables had the customary arched lie-on-your- stomach windows, but it was the front facade which was distinguished by unusual features. First, the main windows were each ample enough to contain three casements in a row, separated by mullions. Secondly, the gable over the porch had an oeil de boeuj window, sometimes known as an oculus or bull’s eye. In 1872 it was claimed by the gentleman who owned the Castle that this circular window was used for shooting Indians. Be that as it may, the opening is almost unique in early Virginia. The third feature is the broken belt course of brick over the two-leaf door of the vestibule, forming what is known in England as a “battlemented” doorway, a description of which follows. 

The belt or string course of projecting brick at the level of the second story at Foster’s Castle ornaments not only the two main gable ends, but extends around the whole vestibule. Now when the belt approaches the front doorway, it makes a right-angle break upward and over the head of the door. The illustration indicates how this was done. Inasmuch as the battlemented doorway decorated the approach front of many a seventeenth-century dwelling — including Bacon’s Castle and Fairfield — it is not surprising to find that it is a pure English medieval motif. At historic Compton Wynyates in Warwickshire, for instance, the two-story porch has a "battlemented pointed arch.” Another coeval example is at Little Warley Hall, Essex. 

The other late seventeenth-century cruciform house, Christ’s Cross, has not been as well preserved as its twin, Foster’s Castle, but there is the same story-and-loft dwelling with high vestibule After entering the enclosed porch of Christ’s Cross by a battlemented doorway, one finds oneself facing a double door to the great hall, called the finest Tudor door in all Virginia. To designate it as such is scarcely an exaggeration. The two leaves are hung by strap hinges, the heavy nails of which are cushioned on small leather washers. The narrow door panels, rising vertically, comprise molded battens secured to wide boards by means of clinched, wrought-iron nails. So wide are the boards of the door that only two vertical planks are needed for each leaf. But what is most remarkable are the Gothic moldings of the battens and the proportions of the panels. In design these moldings approach those seen on Gothic chests. 

Upon entering the great hall of Christ’s Cross, one’s attention is drawn almost at once to the summer beam or girder which runs from one gable-end fireplace to the other. This beam, and those running along the top of the walls, called wall plates, are elaborately carved with molded edges, terminating in lamb’s tongues. For all that, the most curious feature of Christ’s Cross is the capital of the square oak post near the middle of the dwelling. Upon this capital there is carved in raised relief a heart-shaped shield, enclosing scrolls, with a strange impost molding above — the ensemble partaking of that flavor belonging to grotesque carvings of Romanesque and Gothic sculpture. Here at Christ’s Cross is no Renaissance carving, but a bas-relief of genuine medieval style. In every rib and sinew Christ’s Cross bespeaks the Middle Ages. 

-The Architecture of The Old South: The Medieval Style 1585-1850 Henry Chandlee Forman, Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts 1948

¹- Burned in 1676 during Bacon's Rebellion

²- Burned by an arsonist in1699

New Kent's Members of the House of Burgesses - Bios III

West, Colonel John, son of Captain John West governor, etc. He was born at Bell Field on the York river in 1632, being the first child of English parents born on the York river, lived at West Point. He sat on the courts martial that tried the rebels in Bacon's time and was senior justice and colonel of the New Kent county militia. He married Unity daughter of Major Joseph Croshaw Burgess for New Kent county in 1685 and 1686. He had three sons John, Nathaniel and Thomas, and one daughter Unity who married Henry Fox of King William county. 

Foster, Joseph, nephew of Captain Will1am Bassett first of that name in Virginia, he came from Newport, Southampton county, England and was a justice of New Kent county and Burgess in 1688, 1696, and 1700 1702 vestryman of St Peter's parish New Kent and lieutenant colonel of the militia. He died about 1715 leaving issue.

-Most of this information came from Stanard's The Colonial Virginia Register, Cynthia Leonard's The General Assembly of Virginia, July 30, 1619-January 11, 1978, A Bicentennial Register of Members and Gardiner's Encyclopedia of Virginia.