Stranica 42 [42]
OCR
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 England. 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 highceiled 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]
