Stranica 42 [42]
CLAREMONT MANOR
HE, Claremont plantation, situated in Surry County,
on the south side of the James River, about half
way between Richmond and Norfolk, was bestowed
upon Arthur Allen as an original grant from Eng¬
land.
The romantic legend, told along the river, is
that two brothers, Allen and Eric Guelph, princes of the house of
Hanover, were rivals for the love of a high-born English lady.
Eric was successful in his suit, but on his wedding night was fatally
stabbed by his brother, Arthur, who then fled from England.
Taking refuge in America, he is said to have changed his name
to Arthur Allen, in which name he held the large grant of land
given him in 1649. Upon this plantation, a few years later, he
built the house known as Claremont Manor, which today is an
excellent example of the best architecture of the seventeenth century.
Built of bricks, said to have been brought from the mother
country, this old house combines, as do other homes of the early
Colonial period, the deep English basement and spacious high¬
ceiled rooms of the first floor, with the quaint dormer windows and
high-pitched roof of the second story. As the colonial workmen
were wont to build on the line of a letter of the alphabet, these
three stories, each, conform to the shape of the letter “I.”
The house is said to be an exact replica of Claremont Manor
in Surrey County, England, which, during a long period, was a
favorite royal residence. It was the property, at one time, of Lord
Clive, then of Princess Charlotte and her husband, Leopold the
First, King of the Belgians, It was the home, also, of the Duke of
Kent, the father of Queen Victoria.
Claremont-on-the-James is massively and strategically built. It
has its brick-walled underground passage to the river, which was
[27]