Virginia

Spring Hill, Bermuda, Chesterfield County, Virginia (37.385936, -77.405000)

Main House Felling dates: Winter 1761/2, Winter 1766/7, Summer 1767

Posts (3/3) 1761 (C) 1766 (C); Joists (2/2) 1766 (C, ½C); Studs (5/6) 1766 (C) 1762; Collar (0/1) Trimmer (0/1). Site Master 1615--1766 SHLVAx1 (t =9.38 SJC; 9.21 VAPINE2B; 8.97 WVVAP). Individual Timber 1604--1766 shlva8 (t = 6.14 WVVAP; 6.07 PHWV; 5.57 SHLVA).

The Spring Hill Plantation House in its current form, is a one-and-a-half story, double-pile, side passage single dwelling. The heavy frame building is clad with beaded clapboards and rests upon a continuous brick foundation laid in a Flemish Bond. It is covered with a side-gabled roof pierced by two dormers on each slope. A pair of brick chimneys on the west side wall, opposite the interior passage. The front façade of the building features an offset main entrance with a single double-hung sash window beside it. The rear façade is divided into three bays with two taller double-hung sash windows and a shorter window in the left bay as a result of the stairs in the interior passage.

Attached to the east side of the house is a large addition that was appended in the twentieth century.

As a double-pile, side passage residence, the interior of the original block is two rooms deep with a hallway running the entire length along one side. At the rear of the hallway is a flight of stairs leading to the finished half-story above. The half-story was divided into two or three rooms with the primary division wall running the length of the roof ridge. The addition contains one primary room on each floor, in addition to a small room at the rear of the first floor that was originally an inset porch that has subsequently been enclosed. The original portion of the house sits over a basement that is half finished with a full-height room in the rear-half of the building, and crawl-space under the front half.

Dendrochronological analysis has shown that the original structure was built in the summer of 1767 or shortly thereafter.

Worthington, M J and Seiter, J I 2014 "The Tree-Ring Dating of the Spring Hill, Virginia" unpublished Oxford Tree-Ring Laboratory archive report 2014/15.

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