Plantation Home
Ground Floor Plan

Adjoining the Spinning and Weaving Room is a smaller room which is furnished as the housekeeper's bedchamber and represents her private domain.

The housekeeper was an important and respected member of every plantation household. In some instances she was a family member - a widow or spinster who, in exchange for security and pleasant surroundings, would undertake managing the affairs of the house. She supervised all the domestic activities in the Great House and was responsible only to the mistress of the household.

The ground floor of the east wing probably contained the service and work areas. This room, now interpreted as a spinning and weaving area, would have been bustling with activity. To keep everyone on the plantation in clothes and fabric it was necessary for several workers to produce goods all year round. A large 19th-century loom, spinning wheels and other equipment - combs, cards, hackles, yarn winders, etc. can be seen here.

The Wet and Dry Stores, so designated in the 18th-century inventories, occupy the area in the hyphen that connects the west wing to the east wing on the ground level. Its primary function was storage, and the present day doorways to the adjoining passages did not exist. The Stores were accessible only through the exterior doors on the north side of the house. In the early 1990s, architects removed the plaster from the walls, revealing the "ghost" of an original north-south partition that divided the area into two unequal, separate rooms. Pockets for shelf supports were found in the walls of the west room. Originally none of the walls were plastered, hence the name brick rooms in Thomas Lee's 1758 inventory.

Wine Cellar

At the east end of the passage, steps descend to the wine cellar. The brick vaults, capable of storing beverages at slightly different temperatures, are still in place. One inventory, dated 1776, itemized imported wines such as Madeira, claret and port, as well as Virginia wines. With a steady flow of visitors and guests, the cellar was a very important part of Stratford.

Warming Kitchen

The outside kitchen kept the heat and smells of cooking away from the Great House. With a slightly smaller fireplace and no bake or warming ovens, this room may have been used as a finishing or warming kitchen. Here foods could have been reheated, meats carved and serving dishes prepared before their presentation in the dining room.

The room adjacent to the warming kitchen is furnished as a place where house servants undertook some of their daily tasks such as the polishing of silver and brass objects, mending clothes and other household chores. It also could have served as a common room for the servants who worked in the Great House.