Pictures from Williamsburg

(Backdated from Tuesday evening.)

Today we spent the day in lovely Colonial Williamsburg, one of my favorite examples of historic preservation in the US (and I've been to quite a few).  It was a hot, dry day, and the historic quarter was pretty quiet, most likely because this is the awkward period after vacations have ended for most people but before school has been in session long enough for school trips to have happened.  Rather than blather, though, I'll let a few of my pictures speak for themselves.

This sort of house is everywhere in the historic district.  Modest and unassuming, they are nevertheless charming in their simplicity.  Most buildings here are owned by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which staffs them with historical interpreters, but some houses are owned by private individuals.  Can you imagine living here?

The monumental Governor's Palace, which was the seat of the English governor of Virginia colony prior to the revolution, is located at the north end of a long green and is one of the first major buildings visitors see when they come in from the visitors' center in the east.  One must buy a pass to get inside the historic buildings like this one, which we've done before, so we didn't bother this time, but the palace gardens are exquisite, and include a small lake.  Inside is a working summer kitchen, a ballroom, bedrooms, and so on, all decorated as hey would have been in colonial times.  It's worth noting that when we think "governor" we think of an elected politician, but British colonial governors were appointed and served at the pleasure of the king.  In this sense they could be considered viceroys, and thinking of the Governor's Palace as viceregal gives a good sense of the degree of lavishness, especially in comparison to the rest of the city.

In keeping with how things were back in 1776, which is the historical moment Colonial Williamsburg relives every day, many of the houses have accompanying gardens, either formal and ornamental like this one or rough and practical.  The ornamental gardens are divided into patterns by paths and planted with flowers and aromatic shrubs, often bordered by stiff boxwood hedges.  Those non-brick paths which look like gravel are actually crushed oyster shells, which could be had in great abundance since Williamsburg is just up the James  River from the ocean.

This is one of the pragmatic gardens - call it a kitchen garden, since it's devoted to food.  As you can see, it's much rougher than the formal garden.  In the middle of the bed in the midground are leeks and (I think) peppers, and the spiky bushes in the background are rosemary.  Off on the right edge of the picture was a patch of very sad (dehydrated) squash.  In the foreground you can see rhubarb and marigolds.

This is the Bruton Parish Church, which has been in operation since it was built during the colonial era.  As one would expect, it is Episcopal (descended, obviously, from the Church of England) and is still a functioning parish community.  Beyond the church is a graveyard, some of whose occupants are older than this country.  They say it's haunted, but what isn't in a place as old as this one?

I leave you with one of the odder signs which hangs outside the white clapboard buildings.  Presumably this is for a pub, but I'm at a loss as to what the pub must have been named, since there's a buck's head, a well, and pear trees on it.  Then again, it probably made for some unique branding...