Page 260 [260]
GPS OH
Tee Dipe water.) (L RALE
tanning house, one of the conical-shaped icehouses peculiar to Tide¬
water Virginia, an unusual number of fine barns, and quarters for
the house servants and field hands. The out-of-doors kitchen had
an immense fireplace—crane, and a Dutch oven and, of course, in
the good old days, a “‘tin kitchen,” where huge saddles of mutton
and haunches of venison were roasted before the great fire of logs.
On either side of the house were ‘‘strikers’’ for the house-servants,
each one having an especial number, and it needed twenty-one
strikes to complete the tally in the days before "61-65. Mr. and
Mrs. James H. Roy lived in a small but comfortable brick build- _
ing, still in evidence on the lawn, while they personally superin¬
tended the building of their home and the laying out of the grounds
and garden.
The garden is surrounded by an unique scalloped brick wall.
A broad, graveled walk extended from east to west as one entered,
and another from north to south crossed it in the middle, where
there was a latticed summer-house covered with jasmine and
honeysuckle and fitted with seats inside. The walk from north to
south was bordered by grapes carefully trained on lattices, while
on either side of the entrance walk were raised borders, where
many shrubs and flowers grew. On the north and south of this
walk were flower-beds in circles and hectagonals where every sort
of sweet old-time bloom was cultivated. Along the borders were
arborvitae trees at intervals, and under them grew lilies of the
valley in profusion, and such shrubs as calycanthus, smoke trees,
tamarisk and English laburnum with, here and there, fine box¬
bushes. |
In each scallop of the brick wall was a raised mound, covered
with violets, out of which grew a rosebush. Against the southern
walls pomegranates and figs ripened to perfection and French
artichokes were successfully cultivated. The figs bear abundantly
to this day, but the pomegranates have disappeared with the passing
of the skilled gardeners.
A giant pecan tree on the lawn thrives as well as if in its native
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