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.
