Page 130 [130]
GOES SSÖZÍON
BEGHMOND AND (/V-ECUNLTY
brought forth on great occasions to decorate the house, once
Hourished. To the left of the greenhouse are two large box-trees.
There was a custom among the ladies of the earlier period to
exchange flower slips and seed. In this way friendships and
memories were renewed each year as the plants blossomed. So
the Watson or Archer garden gave out the fragrance of Westover,
Shirley and Brandon; Barboursville and Castle Hill. In return,
the Byrds, Carters and Harrisons; the Barbours and Rives, re¬
ceived their slips from the chatelaine of this house. All the old¬
fashioned flowers grew here—lilacs and snowballs; cydonia —
japonica, syringa, calycanthus, and yellow roses. Jhere were |
others, and many rows of hyacinths and jonquils; tulips and
daffodils. /
A brick courtyard adjoins the garden and a low gateway leads
into it. On the right of this gate are several stone steps with
foot-scrapers, and here one passes under an arch of roses into the
kitchen-garden.
Opening onto this court are several brick buildings, a smoke¬
house, a large kitchen building with servants guarters, a green¬
house, and numerous wood and coal houses.
At the end of a long, straight walk in the garden is the stable,
with a high and heavy gate, through which the family carriage
was driven.
For a hundred years a picturesque sycamore tree stood in the
middle of the pavement outside the garden wall. This tree measured
fourteen feet and three inches in circumference, and the oldest
inhabitant cannot remember when it was not there. Of primeval
growth, it had boldly taken possession of the street, and it was
only removed by the city authorities when pedestrians demanded it.
Its silvery branches furnished material for several of our best
and most beloved writers. The late Thomas Nelson Page likened
the pallor of a dying man to the bark of this tree, in one of his
short stories, and both the tree and the Archer house are described
in Ellen Glasgow’s “The Romance of a Plain Man.” It was
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