Bacon’s Castle: 350th Arthur Allen House Anniversary, Surry, Virginia

No record exists regarding the identity of the architect contracted on 200 acres (80.94 hectares) patented in 1649 by Arthur Allen -- immigrant, justice of the peace, merchant, planter -- to build the Jacobean-styled two-and-a-half-storied cruciform (cross-plan) structure with:

• curved, stepped Flemish end-gables;
• English bond-laid brick walls;
• exterior window surrounds of pargeted (plastered), raised brick;
• molded brick water table;
• openings with diamond-paned casement windows;
• plastered second-story string-course surround;
• projecting front two-story entry and rear stair-towers;
• sandstone-tiled, steep-pitched roof;
• triple cap-joined, diagonally set chimneys rising from a straight stack 4 feet (1.22 meters) deep by 10 feet (3.05 meters) wide.

But the Library of Congress furnishes floor plan copies on-line. It also gives photographed exterior and interior views.  

As the United States of America’s first statewide historic preservation organization, the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities holds fast to buying, preserving, and stabilizing significant landscapes and structures since 1889. It interweaves correspondence, digs, maps, paintings, photographs, reminiscences, reports, and surveys to ensure landform/landmark integrity for:

• 6 historic sites;
• 200+ legacy properties.

Bacon’s Castle therefore juggles self-guided, interpreter-staffed public access, as do:

• Cape Henry Lighthouse (1792);
• Jamestowne (1607);
• John Marshall House (1790);
• Patrick Henry’s Scotchtown (1719);
• Smith’s Fort Plantation (1761).

Excluding 1740s-/1850s-dated alterations and 1850s-dated Greek Revival additions, the 9300-square-foot (863.99-square-meter) mansion keeps authenticity intact with:

• basement kitchen, garret servant quarters;
• first-floor chamber/parlor, hall closets and fireplace;
• second-floor east, west rooms;
• tower trio of rooms.  

Correspondence, Garden Club of Virginia-funded digs of 1984 - 1991, maps, and surveys lead the APVA to restore the 1680-dated, one-and-a-half-acre (0.61-hectare) garden with:

• packed white-sand paths;
• six rectangular grid-contained plots for apple, Cherokee rose, columbine, eggplant, elecampane, fig, gourds, grapes, hawthorne, hollyhock, hops, lamb’s-ear, larkspur, lemon thyme, love-lies-bleeding, mother-of-the-evening, mullein, okra, onions, pecan, pomegranate, poppywort, red clover, rosemary, scaly bark watermelons, sensitive plant, snapdragon, sweet potato.

They monitor:

• brewery/laundry/kitchen/root-cellar, garden brickwork remains;
• cattle bones and wine bottles from the Rebellion’s four-month occupancy;
• extant barns, caretaker’s house, slave-house, smokehouse.

On-going inspections currently notify the APVA ownership (since 1973) of $350,000 price-tags to keep Bacon’s Castle culturally enriching, educationally entertaining, and geo-historically enthralling from 2015’s 350^th anniversary onward. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

"Bacon's Castle Surry Co Va R.H. Cocke"; drawing ca. 1820 of southwest front and northwest side (gable end) by Colonel Richard Herbert Cocke (September 5, 1769-July 11, 1833), who inherited castle via Uncle Benjamin's marriage to Arthur Allen's daughter
At time of drawing, Bacon's Castle had stood its ground for more than 150 years.
Historic American Buildings Survey: No known restrictions, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue (PPOC) @ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/va0955.photos.165989p/

Bacon's Castle with .1 mile drive and iron fence enclosure: castle, grounds, well, and buildings (barns, carriage house, chicken house, corn crib [burned], farm barn, peanut barn, quarters, smokehouse, tool shed, wood shed)
measured July 19, 1940; drawn August 1940; W.T. Ramsay, Field Team delineator; scale: 1 inch = 64 feet
Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS): No known restrictions, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue (PPOC) @ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/va0955.sheet.00001a/

details of Bacon's Castle's trio of chimneys
measured July 19, 1940; drawn August 1940; R.C. Neale, measurer; W.T. Ramsay, measurer and delineator
Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS): No known restrictions, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue (PPOC) @ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/va0955.sheet.00011a/

Bacon's Castle: 17th century colonial America's Jacobean rarity, still impressively standing in 21st century
645 Bacons Castle Trail (State Route 617), Surry County, southeastern Virginia; Monday, June 16, 2008, 01:42: Sgam80, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bacons_Castle.jpg

Bacon's Castle: first-floor west room, looking northwest
Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS): No known restrictions, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue (PPOC) @ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/va0955.photos.165984p/

Bacon's Castle, northwest side: famous trio of chimneys
Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS): No known restrictions, via Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Online Catalogue (PPOC) @ https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/va0955.photos.165976p/

Ancestry.com. 2012. “Arthur Allen Sr.” U.S., Find A Grave Index, 1600s-Current [database on-line]. Provo, UT, U.S.A: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://search.ancestrylibrary.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gss=angs-g&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=arthur+&gsln=allen&mswpn__ftp=Surry+County%2c+Virginia%2c+USA&mswpn=2834&mswpn_PInfo=7-%7c0%7c1652393%7c0%7c2%7c3245%7c49%7c0%7c2834%7c0%7c0%7c&MSAV=1&msddy=1669&msdpn__ftp=Surry+County%2c+Virginia%2c+USA&msdpn=2834&msdpn_PInfo=7-%7c0%7c1652393%7c0%7c2%7c3245%7c49%7c0%7c2834%7c0%7c0%7c&catbucket=rstp&uidh=lx5&pcat=ROOT_CATEGORY&h=118813062&db=FindAGraveUS&indiv=1&ml_rpos=1

Andrews, Stephenson B., ed. 1984. Bacon's Castle Surrey County Virginia. Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities Research Bulletin No. 3. Richmond VA: Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities.

“Bacon’s Castle, State Route 617, Surry, Surry County, VA.” Library of Congress > Prints & Photographs Reading Room > Prints & Photographs Online Catalog > Record. Retrieved August 2015. Available @ http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/VA0955/ 

“Bacon’s Castle.” National Park Service > National Register of Historic Places > Travel > James River Plantations > List of Sites > Surry County. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/jamesriver/bac.htm 

“Bacon’s Castle.” Virginia Historical Society > Collections and Resources > The Garden Club of Virginia > House Sites. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.vahistorical.org/collections-and-resources/garden-club-virginia/house-sites/bacons-castle 

“Bacon’s Castle.” Virginia Tourism Corporation > Things To Do > Historic Sites. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.virginia.org/Listings/HistoricSites/BaconsCastle/ 

“Bacon’s Rebellion.” Preservation Virginia > Historic Properties > Bacon’s Castle. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.apva.org/BaconsCastle/BaconsRebellion.php 

“Bacons Castle.” Gardenvisit.com > Gardens > USA > Virginia. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/bacons_castle 

Erickson, Mark St. John. 18 June 2015. “New Find at Ancient Bacon’s Castle.” Daily Press.com > Features > Archaeology > HR History. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.dailypress.com/features/history/dp-nws-bacons-castle-archaeology-20150618-story.html 

“Garden.” Preservation Virginia > Historic Properties > Bacon’s Castle. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.apva.org/BaconsCastle/Garden.php 

"Genealogy: The Cocke Family of Virginia (Henrico)." 1897. The Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, Vol. 5, No. 1 (July 1897): 71-89

• Available @ http://www.jstor.org/stable/4242018

“Introduction.” Preservation Virginia > Historic Properties > Bacon’s Castle. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.apva.org/BaconsCastle/ 

Kimball, Fiske. 1922. Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and of the Early Republic. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/domesticarchitec00kimb

mclark66_1. “Arthur Allen.” Ancestry.com > Ancestry Family Trees > Wilson Family Tree. Provo, UT, U.S.A.: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://trees.ancestrylibrary.com/tree/12610673/person/27340867303/facts/sources#smLblTrees

“090-0001 Bacon’s Castle 1966 Final Nomination.” Virginia Department of Historic Resources > Historic Registers > Surry County (Tidewater Region). Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.dhr.virginia.gov/registers/Counties/Surry/090-0001_Bacon%27s_Castle_1966_Final_Nomination.pdf 

Roberts, Bruce. 1990. Plantation Homes of the James River. Chapel Hill NC: University of North Carolina Press.

Southworth, Gertrude Van Duyn. 1911. Builders of Our Country. Volume I. New York NY; Boston MA; Chicago IL: D. Appleton and Sons.

• Available via Internet Archive @ https://archive.org/details/buildersourcoun00soutgoog

Sullivan, Mary Ann. “Bacon’s Castle.” Bluffton.edu > Virginia > Surry County. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/virginia/surry/bacon%27s.html 

Watson, Denise M. 12 April 2015. “Bacon’s Castle at 350 (Doesn’t Look a Day over 200).” HamptonRoads.com > Life. Retrieved August 2015.

• Available @ http://hamptonroads.com/2015/04/bacons-castle-350-doesnt-look-day-over-200 

Wilson, Richard Guy. (Ed.). 2002. Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont. New York, NY, U.S.A.: Oxford University Press, Inc. Society of Architectural Historians Buildings of the United States