Part 19 (1/2)

However, Palladio ill.u.s.trates the villa of ”the magnificent Lord Leonardo Emo” at ”_Fanzolo_, in the _Trevigian_” (fig. 45), which may have caught Mercer's eye. This building had a central, raised pavilion with two one-story wings, each approximately 100 feet long. Each wing had a full-length, arcaded veranda. The wings were intended for stables, granaries, and so forth. Palladio commented:

”People may go under shelter every where about this House, which is one of the most considerable conveniences that ought to be desir'd in a Country-house.”[156]

Mercer may have been impressed by this argument and by the arcade in the design. He was already familiar with arcades at the capitol at Williamsburg and at the College of William and Mary, as well as at outlying courthouses where he practiced, the courthouse at Stafford probably included. In any case, he did not have the veranda built until 1748 or 1749, after the main structure had been completed. It is significant, in this regard, that it was not until March 1748 that he settled accounts with Sydenham & Hodgson for the four architectural books (including Palladio).

A formal garden apparently was laid out in the nearly square, walled enclosure behind the mansion. It is perhaps wholly a coincidence that Palladio, writing about the villa at Fanzolo, commented, ”On the back of this Building there is a square Garden.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 46.--EXCAVATION PLAN of Structure E, looking southwest.]

FOOTNOTES:

[149] HENRY CHANDLEE FORMAN, _The Architecture of the Old South_ (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1948), pp.

74-75.

[150] Op. cit. (footnote 94), p. 21.

[151] LOUIS CAYWOOD, _Excavations at Green Spring Plantation_ (Yorktown, 1955), pp. 11, 12, maps nos. 3 and 4.

[152] ROBERT BEVERLEY, op. cit. (footnote 5), p. 289.

[153] WATERMAN, op. cit. (footnote 94), pp. 23-26; FISKE KIMBALL, _Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic_ (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927), p. 42.

[154] ROSAMOND RANDALL BEIRNE and JOHN HENRY SCARFF, _William Buckland, 1734-1774; Architect of Virginia and Maryland_ (Baltimore: Maryland Historical Society, 1958).

[155] WATERMAN, op. cit. (footnote 94), p. 298.

[156] ANTONIO PALLADIO, _The Architecture of A. Palladio ...

Revis'd, Design'd, and Publish'd By Giacomo Leoni ... The Third Edition, Corrected ..._ (London, 1742), p. 61, pl. 40.

XI

_Kitchen Foundation_ (_Structure E_)

DESCRIPTION OF EXCAVATIONS

Structure E was a brick foundation, 17 feet by 32 feet, situated at the northwest corner of the enclosure-wall system. Its south wall was continuous with Wall D, which joined it, and was at right angles to Wall E. The latter ab.u.t.ted it in line with an interior foundation wall which bisected the structure into two room areas, designated X and Y. Thus it once stood like a bastion extending outside the enclosure walls, but remaining integral with them and affording a controlled entrance to the enclosure (fig. 46).

The east end of Structure E extended under a modern boundary fence to the present edge of the highway. Ditching of the highway had cut into the foundation and exposed the debris and slabs of stone in place, which indeed had provided the first clues to the existence of the structure.

Clearance of the easterly area, Room X, revealed a pavement of roughly rectangular slabs of mixed Aquia-type lime-sandstone and red sandstone.

These slabs were flaked, eroded, and discolored, as though they had been exposed to great heat. The pavement was not complete, some stones having apparently been removed. The scattered locations of the stones remaining _in situ_ implied that the entire room was originally paved.

Between the northwest corner of Room X and a brick abutment 5 feet to the south was a rectangular area where the clay underlying the room had been baked to a hard, red, bricklike ma.s.s (fig. 49). Wood ash was admixed with the clay. This was clearly the site of a large fireplace, where constant heat from a now-removed hearth had penetrated the clay.

Extending north 3.8 feet beyond the bounds of the room at this point was a U-shaped brick foundation 4.75 feet wide. Near the southeast corner of the room, just outside of the foundation, which it ab.u.t.ted, was a well-worn red-sandstone doorstep, which located the site of the door communicating between Structure E and the interior of the enclosure--and, of course, between Structure E and Structure B, the distance between which was 100 feet.

Room Y, extending west beyond the corner of the enclosure walls was perhaps an addition to the original structure. The disturbed condition of the bricks where this area joined Room X, however, obscured any evidence in this respect. In the northeast corner, against the opposite side of the fireplace wall in Room X, was another area of red-burned clay. Lying across this was a long, narrow slab of wrought iron, 34.5 by 6 inches (fig. 50), which may have served in some fas.h.i.+on as part of a stove or fire frame. In any case, a small fireplace seems to have been located here. Approximately midway in the west wall of Room Y, against the exterior, lay a broken slab of red sandstone, which obviously also served as a doorstone. That it had been designed originally for a more sophisticated purpose is evident in the architectural treatment of the stone, which is smoothly dressed with a torus molding along each edge and a diagonal cut across one end (fig. 41). No evidence of floor remained in this room, except for a smooth surface of yellow clay which became sticky when exposed to rain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figure 47.--FOUNDATION of Structure E (kitchen).]