Stranica 469 [469]
HIsTORIC GARDENS OF VIRGINIA
A beautiful and luxuriant hedge of tree-box, about four feet
high, pungent and aromatic in the sun, spreads across the front
lawn in an unusual design and walls in the grass walks that lead
to the house. An interesting feature about the hedges at Red Hill
is that they are of tree-box, clipped and kept short, instead of the
dwarf-box generally used for this purpose.
The house, which was frame and painted white, consisted of a
two-story dwelling with an east wing. On the front porch every
one stopped, involuntarily, to admire the extensive view, the long,
gradual slope of the ridge, planted with tobacco and wheat, the
wide lowgrounds of waving green corn on the Staunton River, and
the dark green wooded hills of Halifax County across the stream.
As one entered the front door, the charming wainscoted Colo¬
nial hall in the two-story addition built by Patrick Henry's son,
John Henry, extended straight through the house. The north door
gave a delightful view of the cool and shaded rear lawn, while
the south door seemed to be a frame for the distant landscape
dazzling in the brilliant sunshine.
On the side lawn, to the west of the house, screened off from
the rear by a high box-hedge and a tremendous holly tree, is the
kitchen—one of those proverbial Virginia country kitchens that
were so far away that hot battercakes had to be brought to the
house on horseback! When the west wing was built by Mrs. M. B.
Harrison, great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry, and the present
owner, a kitchen was added to the house as well as other modern
conveniences. |
The east wing, a story-and-a-half Colonial structure, was the
original house. It had high white mantels and a crooked, narrow,
boxed-in stairway, and the massive brass locks on the doors were
given Patrick Henry as a fee in a lawsuit. It was in one of the
rooms of this wing that Patrick Henry died, sitting in his three¬
cornered mahogany chair, facing death with Christian fortitude.
At the end of this wing, through the shed that Patrick Henry
added because “he wished to hear the patter of the raindrops on
1288]