Northern Neck Cultural Landscape Symposium

October 22-25, 2009

Menokin stair Photo courtesy of HABS

Each year this residential symposium takes a different theme. For 2009, Stratford Hall, in cooperation with the Menokin Foundation, will present a program entitled "Cultural Landscapes of Virginia’s Northern Neck: The Art and Mystery of Building in Early Virginia."

Program

The building process as it was practiced in early America was vastly different from the means and methods of construction we know today. Indeed, the post-Civil War mechanization of the building trades has almost obliterated our capacity to grasp what erecting even the simplest early American structure involved in terms of time, energy, and skill. Moreover, few instruction manuals or other broadly communicated means of setting standards and prescribing methods were available, so the practice of building was always regional in character.

Brick masons, stone carvers, carpenters, and joiners learned their crafts almost entirely by oral instruction and practice. As one generation of builders attained mastery of the crafts, the next generation of apprentices gathered to watch and learn. Customarily each apprentice was bound to a builder and lived in his household, performing mundane tasks in the workshop and on the building sites. In exchange he could expect detailed instruction in the master’s craft as well as opportunities to attain and improve his own capacity to handle with dexterity and confidence the tools of the builder’s trade. So individualized and traditional was the practice and transmission of each building craft that written contracts by which a master and apprentice were bound often included the specific pledge, drawn from long custom and based in the medieval guild tradition, that the master would convey “the art and mystery” of his craft to his young charge.

Demonstrations of early American craftsmanship, made possible through years of patient study and recovery of traditional building methods, are now available at Colonial Williamsburg and other outdoor museums. Our outdoor museum will be the Northern Neck of Virginia, where a diversity of early buildings survive and are available to teach us, if we watch and listen with care, about the lost world from which they came.

Who Should Attend
The Stratford Hall symposia are intended for those who are entirely new to the study of cultural landscapes and architectural history. However, those who already enjoy knowledge of Virginia's early history and material life will encounter exciting ways of thinking about these topics anew.

Participants will find themselves in stimulating company with many opportunities to discuss the lectures and tour destinations in congenial settings. By the symposium's end, participants will have taken a fresh look at the early history of Virginia's Northern Neck and how it has intersected with larger trends in American history.

Instruction
Dr. Camille Wells teaches in the History Department of the College of William and Mary, where she received her Ph.D. She also earned an M.A. degree in architectural history from the University of Virginia, where she taught until 2002. She has worked as an architectural historian for the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, as well as for the state historic preservation offices of Kentucky, Maryland and Virginia. Her research and published essays focus on the architecture of Colonial and early national Virginia.

Special Needs
Our tours will take place rain or shine. Walking around at Stratford Hall and other tour destinations will be a necessary part of the symposium experience. Please notify us when you register if you have any physical or medical conditions that may interfere with walking at a normal pace or negotiating stairs. Also, let us know of any dietary restrictions you may have so we can make every effort to accommodate you.

Program Fees
The cost for this program for Friends of Stratford Hall cardholders is $825 per person in a double room (mutual requests only) or $950 in a single room. This fee includes: three nights lodging in Stratford Hall's Guest Houses; a buffet-style breakfast on Friday, Saturday and Sunday; a box lunch on Friday and Saturday; and dinner on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The non-member fees are $850 (double) and $975 (single).

There is also an option for those who live nearby and choose to commute from home. Friends of Stratford Hall can join us for the lectures, tours, lunches, opening reception and Thursday night dinner for $450. The fee for non-member participants for the same activities is $475.

Symposium Highlights

• Lectures by a scholar highly respected for her expertise in colonial Virginia's history and material culture
• Private visits to a series of Northern Neck houses and public buildings, most of which are rarely available for close study
• A demonstration and discussion at Menokin Foundation of the materials and methods associated with the construction and embellishment of fine buildings
• A special tour and analysis of the Stratford Hall mansion
• Lodging and fine dining in the pastoral setting of Stratford Hall

For more information and/or to be put on a mailing list for the symposium brochure, please contact Program Director Ken McFarland at (804) 493-8038 ext. 1558 or email kmcfarland@stratfordhall.org. Click the following links for: Daily Schedule and printable Registration Form.