The "Cross-House" in New Kent Pt V

 

Criss Cross stands on a gentle knoll surrounded by cultivated fields and woodland and is reached by unpaved state and private roads. The house enjoys an immediate environment whose character has changed little since it was built late in the seventeenth century. Although much altered, the house retains its original overall appearance and important late-seventeenth century detailing.

The brick house is T-shaped in plan, and like nearby Foster's Castle, and the Mathew Jones house in Newport News, it was a one or a one-and-a half-story building with a two-story single-bay projection in the center of the facade. The original walls are Flemish bond with glazed headers, constructed of unusually thick bricks, averaging 8 314" x 4 1/4" x 3 114". The watertable consists of mixed Flemish and English bonds on the main body of the house, with predominantly Flemish on the porch projection. Much of the brickwork of the front wall of the projection has been replaced, but it retains a belt course that wraps around the sides between the first and second floors and breaks upward on the front projection to emphasize the doorway.  

The three brick gables were replaced with wood in the nineteenth- century, the east end wall being completely rebuilt in wood. At that time the porch projection was raised several feet and given a less steeply  pitched gable roof. The brick exterior end chimneys also date from the nineteenth century. However, the original ones apparently were in the same position since the interior summer bean runs the length of the rooms rather than being shortened by chimneys projecting inward. In the same period, the eastern half of the main body was raised to two stories. The window openings are in their original locations, but the trim and sash date from the n nineteenth century. Exterior restoration in 1953 removed the addition above the porch chamber and returned its roof to the approximate original pitch. Also during this restoration the frame second floor was removed from the main body. The pitch of the western end of the main roof is believed to have remained unchanged, and Harden De V. Pratt, the restoration architect, found one rafter in situ that he believed to be original. The later brickwork of the front wall of the projection was replaced with new Flemish bond, as was the frame east end. Wood was retained as the material of the new gables, rather than rebuilding them in brick. 

Tradition has it that the frame back wing was added in 1790, and this addition appears to have been raised from one-and-a-half to two stories in the second half of the nineteenth century. As part of the restoration of 1953, the back wing was encased in one story of brick and given a gambrel roof. Pratt believed that he found evidence of an original north wing in the brick work of the north wall. Such a wing, perhaps containing the original stair, could have mirrored the form of the existing porch chamber and formed a genuine cross plan, but no definite evidence was recorded and it can not be safely assumed that an original wing existed the location.

The original interior plan consisted of a hall-and-parlor on the first floor, the larger room being entered from the enclosed porch chamber. With the 1790 addition, the entrance front was changed from the south to the north, through the new wing. At some point, the eastern part of the large hall room was partitioned off to form a center hall plan. The partition was removed in the recent restoration and the main block of the house was returned to a hall-and-parlor plan. 

The exterior of Criss Cross has suffered a number of alterations, but significant exterior fabric survived and the building has now been returned to its general original appearance. As such, it is one of Virginia's four existing Tudor-Stuart style structures with porch projections, the others being nearby Foster's Castle, the Mathew Jones House in Newport News, and Bacon's Castle in Surry County. The two story porch projection appears to represent a major seventeenth and very early eighteenth century Virginia building form. The interior contains especially rare period framing and details, the hall-porch door and post carving being the only such survival in the state.

Little is known about Criss Cross' early history, but according to tradition, it was built by George Poindexter about 1690. Poindexter had moved to New Kent County from Gloucester by 1681, when he is recorded as being in St. Peter's Parish. He was elected a vestryman of the parish in 1690, but he refused to serve. The back wing was added around 1790. The house is believed to have left the Poindexter family circa 1830, and J.F. Gilmer's 1863 map of the county shows that Criss Cross was occupied by S. P. Marsters, with Poindexters still living in the area. The house is said to have been used as a commissary during the War Between the States, and aa a refuge for Mrs. Fitzhugh Lee after the destruction of nearby White House by Federal Forces in 1862. The present owners, Mr. and Mrs. E. E. Harrison, bought the house in 1953 and undertook extensive restoration. They did not attempt to return the house to its exact original form, however, and therefore interesting post-seventeenth century interior details were retained.

                                                                    E.A.C.

 

 

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

Location of Criss Cross on 1863 Gilmer map

Foster's Castle Images - Pt IV

 Since there was some interest in actual images form the last post here we have some photographs and plans from the Historic American Buildings Survey at the Library of Congress website.

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 Pt II

 Today some more from Henry Chandlee Forman on the "Cross-house" in Virginia

The last or culminating development in the rural dwelling was the changing of a "hall-and-parlor" habitation, or one of "central-passage" variety, into a "cross-house." The cross was formed by adding an enclosed porch, usually with a "porch chamber" above it, on the front façade, and a wing, like a stair tower, to the rear. However, a "T"-shaped domicile, with no back wing, is also classified as a "cross-house." An old record tells of one Southey Littleton, of Accomack, who had a porch and porch chamber on the front of his dwelling—in other words, a cross-house. Of the extant or partially extant examples in Virginia are "Bacon's Castle" (c. 1650), Surry County; "Malvern Hill" (c. 1662), Henrico County; and "Christ's Cross" (c. 1690) and "Foster's Castle," (c. 1685) both in New Kent. They make a veritable school of building which once must have flourished the length and breadth of tidewater Virginia. With its noted "Bond Castle," Maryland, too, had a school of cross-houses.

Of the Virginia examples, "Bacon's Castle," two-storeys-and-garret high, with basement, was built by one Arthur Allen, and was named for the rebel, Nathaniel Bacon, who in 1676 ordered his men to capture the dwelling. "Castle" meant "fort." Its cross-plan incorporated a porch, porch chamber, and stair tower. A low, wooden, curtain and kitchen extension, which is believed to have been seventeenth century in date, formerly stood off the gable on the "Hall" side—an arrangement indicating that the Great Room perhaps also served as a dining room. The curtain was the buttery, or bottlery.

But the most distinguishing feature of "Bacon's Castle" is the Jacobean "curvilinear" gable at each end. These gables possess round members—"cuspings"—and steps, built pretty much the same way in which they were made in England and the Low Countries. The chimney stacks are Tudor, three in number, set diagonally on their bases at each gable. Because of the way these chimneys look in plan, we call them "diamond stacks."

Also Jacobean are the crude brick pediment over the main entrance, now much changed, and the brick borders surrounding the windows—called "enframements." And of course, the windows formerly held leaded casements, with mullions and transom bars.

Two important features of another of the cross-houses mentioned belong to "Christ's Cross," called for short, "Criss Cross." This writer can remember when there was hardly a person who knew of the existence of this place, and where it was located. The double door opening out into the enclosed porch from the "Hall" we have denoted as the "finest Tudor door in all Virginia"—because of its panel design and Gothic mouldings; and the post in the "Hall" has probably the finest Jacobean carved capital in the United States. The capital is in truth a folk Jacobean carving, a grotesque, comprising a raised heart-shaped shield with crudely[43] chiselled volutes upon it, and an "echinus" or cushion, and an "abacus" or block above it. It reminds one of the ancient Greek Ionic wooden capitals in Athens, Asia Minor, or elsewhere, which possessed rough or incipient volutes.

Study of the cross-house in Virginia needs an essay to itself. We have tried here to give some of the highlights of this last development of the rural dwelling, which is outstandingly medieval in design and construction—with a bit here and there of Jacobean trimming.

Virginia Architecture in The Seventeenth Century, Henry Chandlee Forman Ph.D. (Fine Arts), A.I.A. 1957 With Drawings and Photographs By The Author