BEAUTY IN PLANNING

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31984, 10 May 1969, Page 21

BEAUTY IN PLANNING

. Williamsburgh's Duke of Gloucester Street has been described as “the most beautiful mile in American history.” It was not by accident it won such acclaim. ■I- iyi. ■ . Since 1699, when it became one of the first planned towns in America, Williamsburg has been a tribute to design, order and tasteful surroundings. Its early citizens and its twentieth century restorers have been stirred by its master plan and today, even a casual passage through the historic area becomes a memorable experience for the visitor to America. When Governor Francis Nicholson drew bl* notable Williamsburg plan his i objects were utilitarian, I though his landscape was I beautiful: space and sere- I nity and trees and open I greens and gardens sur* I rounded the houses. I The buildings themselves I were built to rigid specifi- I cations (to a minimum of I 20ft by 30ft on the Duke of I Gloucester Street, on sec- I tions of at least half an I acre.) Though the layout of the I streets was as old a* Peri-1 tie*' Greece, the modern I axis of Market Square and I Palace Green was an tano- l vation of the sort that has ’ kept the town plan fresh | and beautiful for more than I two centuries. I It was about this eafe- B | fully prescribed town plan I that the Williamsburg tradi- I tions of taste and good I living grew up. They : 'were I British in origin and feel- I tag, just as British taste bad J been adapted from Conti- s nental models, all with an S ancestry tracing to Greece J and Rome. In Williamsburg, there

were charming Tidewater Virginia adaptations. These were based on almost 100 years of life along the tidal rivers of the colony, shrewdly devised with an eye to the climate, the tobacco economy, the demands of crude transAtlantic commerce, and the bounty of a virgin land where there was plenty of fine food for all. From this background, within the sight of an elegant governor’s palace and a striking capital on the fringe of the wilderness, and among a group of homes and taverns reminiscent of an English country town, the Virginia way developed. It was soon to be seen in locally produced silver, pot-

tery, brass, furniture, carriages, leather goods and clothing. Usually, despite a common ancestry, these Virginia products differed from those of New England and Pennsylvania and other colonies. The tastemakers of colonial Virginia were not always conscious artists of fashion; they often improvised. They did not hesitate to mix styles and centuries, to subordinate accepted vogues to the demands of daily use. From the start, when the finest of imported furniture and furnishing* appeared in the parlour* of Williamsburg, there was an awareness of a tasteful tradition

of a cultivated approach to life on the recent frontier. Great pride has been taken in restoring and maintaining Duke of Gloucester Street homes, inside and out In response to visitors’ demands for furniture and accessories of equal quality for their homes, colonial Williamsburg began in 1937 a programme of reproductions. From it* modest betinnings this has grown today to include lOOO items of furniture, fabrics, wallpaper, glass, ceramics, prints, crystal, silver, pewter and bras*. Each of these reproductions is a meticulous , copy or adaptation of an antique in colonial Williamsburg’s restored buildings.