Rosewell endures on lands originally occupied by Powhatan
Rosewell Manor attracts Virginians and northeast Commonwealth visitors to Gloucester County’s York River banks. It brings together lovers of:
• architectural ruins;
• barbecue and wine fundraisers, buried treasure;
• ghost stories, gift shops, grassy expanses;
• informal museums;
• marble tombstones;
• picnic lunches, Pocahontas stories;
• river views;
• visitor centers.
It culls from extinct eighteenth-century fields and formal pleasure gardens cultivated memories of 3,000 (1,214.06 hectares) corn, grain, tobacco cash-cropped acres and of:
• American boxwood, sycamore;
• big-leaf periwinkle, black walnut, bull-bay magnolia;
• Christmas fern;
• daffodil, day-lily;
• eastern cottonwood, red cedar;
• English ivy;
• flowering dogwood, forsythia;
• hackberry;
• Kenilworth ivy;
• mock-orange;
• pear, pecan;
• red maple;
• sassafras, spice-bush, spirea;
• tulip-poplar;
• white ash, mulberry;
• wild cherry, raspberry, strawberry;
• willow-oak.
Since 1995, Rosewell Foundation defends Rosewell’s sustainability.
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Email: [email protected]
Open hours, April through October:
Monday through Thursday, Saturday: 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.;
Sunday: 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Physical address: 5113 Old Rosewell Lane, Gloucester, VA 23061
Telephone: 804-693-2585
Website: www.rosewell.org
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Comments
Perhaps the roof telescope corner acts as most symbolic of what could have been had the Rosewell decline not happened.
Some 18th-century houses had rooftop gardens even as some others had telescope corners and still others had both.
Might it not be so profitable, culturally and economically and educationally, for a maintained Rosewell house with everything there to motivate evening rooftop garden walks and sky views?
It always disappoints me, in the answer below, on Sep 24, 2016 by Jim Greaves, five comment boxes down, about Rosewell bricks, walls and window-arch keystones experiencing ill-gotten exits.
Is there any information about the perhaps private, perhaps public whereabouts of bricks, walls, window-arch keystones installed elsewhere without proper permissions?
WriterArtist, Thank you for visiting and writing so wisely about beautiful Rosewell.
The comments section preserves explanations by the son of the mansion's last owners. Rosewell was lost through fire, theft and vandalism over a 50-year span during which it could have been saved. You went to the very heart of what we've lost when you wrote, "The 4 chimney towers and the east wall shows the testing time for Rosewell and how it endured a sad past." How many buildings today would showcase similarly well their remains (if there even are any) 300 years from now?
The historic remains of Rosewell show its past grandeur and promises of a beautiful mansion cum plantation. The 4 chimney towers and the east wall shows the testing time for Rosewell and how it endured a sad past. I wonder why it was not conserved if it was an example of Georgian architectural heritage. Probably not much remained after it was plundered and vandalized.
Veronica, Thank you for liking my tribute to beautiful Rosewell. It shows how much a place means when people are willing to visit only the tip of the iceberg that remains.
Mr. Greaves, I'm sorry for your and your family's loss of Rosewell. I appreciate your visit to my tribute to Rosewell. I hope that the money will be found to do whatever needs to be done, accurately and tastefully, to preserve this beautifully unequaled gem of culture and history.
Thank you for the valuable personal perspectives that you share. Thank you also to you and your family for sharing Rosewell with all who have the honor of visiting.
What an excellent page. I feel like I have had a tour and the inclusion of the genealogy gives it the personable touch too. Fascinating and what a charming piece of architecture. I hadn't heard of this.
Thank you.
Rosewell burned completely in 1916. Remember, the South was poverty-struck after the Civil War - no free labor and punitive measures inflicted by the victors. There was no money except among New Englanders and big business owners, mostly in the North, and they were about to enter a world war, so their investments would go to that effort. The saving was not possible due to a lack of funds, and dare I say it, slaves to do the work that the original owners were able to utilize in exchange for food, clothing, and shelter. The old wood [by 1916] that comprised the interior was completely gone from the fire that gutted the place - vandals took care of tearing down walls and removing keystones over window arches and truckloads of brick over the following 50 years. The closest that could come to saving the remains by the mid-20th century was for my parents and aunt to gift what remained to the APVA.
Mira, It's a shame that the house was not saved since its floor plan is spectacular.
It's amazing to me when names, such as the builder and designer of Rosewell, do not get preserved in modern times so posterity does not know whom to give posthumous praise to.
That floor plan is really nice :) Too bad they didn't save the house.