Green Spring: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Colonial National Historical Park

Eyring, Shaun; Geyer, Dorothy

Colonial National Historical Park is composed of two main sites, Jamestown and Yorktown, and the 23-mile Colonial Parkway that connects them. They represent the first permanent British settlement in North America, Revolutionary War sites, and the parkway movement in the United States. The park also contains natural and recreational resources, Civil War sites, and other prehistoric and historic artifacts. There are several noncontiguous park properties, of which Green Spring is a primary site. Green Spring contains archeological resources of an early plantation associated with Sir William Berkeley, the royal governor of Virginia from 1641-1652 and from 1660-1677. It was supposedly the site of the first English country house built in North America, and played a role in Bacon's Rebellion (1676-1677) when it served as the de facto capital of Virginia after the burning of Jamestown. The 195.74 acre Green Spring unit is the core location of the once vast 17th century plantation of Governor Sir William Berkeley. Berkeley resided at Green Spring from 1643 until just prior to his death in 1677. During this period, he allegedly built a vast agricultural and industrial estate that continued early colonial efforts to diversify Virginia’s economy by developing various agricultural and commercial products. This estate was further developed and refined by the descendent generations of the Ludwells and the Ludwell Lees. During Berkeley’s period, Green Spring’s land holdings grew from approximately 1000 acres to 7152 acres; at its peak during the Philip Ludwell III era, the estate was 8190 acres. Some scholars believe that Green Spring was an early example of a southern plantation that would evolve to represent the antebellum south. Today, all that remains of this once vast estate is ruins and archeological sites of the built core, archeological sites in the surrounding areas, road traces, the remnants of an apparently once-extensive ditch system, a curious mound, and site topography and natural systems. The site is enclosed on all sides by hardwood and pine forest and contains approximately 50 acres of open field in the central parts of the site. Barbed wire and wood post fencing, a few lined with Virginia Red Cedar, edge most of the fields on the west side of Route 614. Relatively level upland terraces extend through the middle of the site and are bordered by sloping swampy lands to the west and south, and off site to the east. The sites of the Berkeley/Ludwell and Ludwell Lee mansions are perched on the high ground overlooking the sloping marshy land towards the James River. The remains of constructed terraces characterize both of these sites. The Berkeley/Ludwell site contains standing brick ruins identified as the jail and the orangery. The spring that was the inspiration for the name Green Spring is enclosed by the ruins of a 19th, and possibly 18th, century brick spring house, but still flows freely from a knoll just southeast of the mansion sites. A raised road trace extending from Route 5 to the Berkeley/Ludwell mansion site crosses a portion of the Powhatan Swamp and an extensive system of drainage ditches and rills. The drainage ditches appear to be part of a larger site drainage system, portions of which are found throughout the site and on adjacent lands. The site is currently not officially opened to the public, but the park does conduct special tours.

Green Spring: Cultural Landscapes Inventory, Colonial National Historical Park

Series

Collections