This year, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site staff dove deep into the history of the park. But not, as you might suspect, the history of events at the park. Instead, Ranger Taylor Hegler dove into the history of a room, one that has graced the Fort Raleigh Visitor Center for decades. And so, the mysteries of the Elizabethan Room have begun to unravel.
By Taylor Hegler, Park Ranger – Interpretation Division
The aptly named, oak-paneled “Elizabethan Room” is a stunning and rare example of English Elizabethan-era architecture at the time of the Raleigh Expedition. Installed circa 1585 in Heronden Hall in Kent County, England, and later acquired at auction by William Randolph Hearst in 1926, the room was purchased by the National Park Service from the Hearst estate in the 1960s.
But did these ornately carved wooden walls ever grace the current incarnation of the eponymous Heronden Hall?
When visiting the Elizabethan Room at Fort Raleigh, a panel describing the room’s provenance displays a black-and-white image of Heronden Hall – a Gothic Revival structure with pointed arches and bay windows – features synonymous with that era of architecture. However, Gothic Revival is certainly not the architectural trend that one would have found in manor homes of the late 16th century. In 1585, Heronden Hall would have likely been a Tudor-style, timber-framed hall house.
So why do we now see a Gothic Revival? The history of the site gives us some answers.
Initially constructed in 1585, Heronden Hall and its estate was inherited by the Austen family around 1630 and subsequently divided into three portions. In 1782 the portion of the estate on which Heronden Hall stood was sold to Jeremiah Curteis who demolished the original 1585 structure. Later, in 1818, a large white brick Georgian manor home was built upon another section of the estate and presumably still stands today. The estate remained in the possession of Curteis until it was sold to William Curteis Whelan in the 1840s. Whelan hired architect W.J. Donthorn to design his Heronden Hall – creating the Gothic manor home we see today.
Given that the 1854 structure was present on the estate in the 1920s when the Elizabethan Room was salvaged, it could easily be assumed that this is the structure from which the rooms were taken. However, publications written in the 1920s by Charles L. Roberson, owner and namesake of the antique firm Roberson’s Ltd., tell a different story.
Titled Historical Homes of the Manor Houses of England, Volume III of Roberson’s work features an Oak Room from Heronden Hall, Kent. Although the room featured is not at Fort Raleigh, it was removed from the same building at the same time as Fort Raleigh’s and was included in Hearst’s 1926 purchase. Of note, within the chapter dedicated to the Oak Rooms at Heronden Hall, Roberson states the following when discussing their removal: “…the present house, which is of Georgian type, contained, until recently, several rooms pannelled [sic] in oak which had been preserved from the original Elizabethan house and were carefully re-erected in the newer structure.”
Given that those within the antique firm surely would have been well-read in the history of art and architecture in England, it is difficult to assume that the 1854 Gothic Revival Heronden Hall could have been mistaken for an 18th century Georgian style manor. Thus, the likelihood that Fort Raleigh’s Elizabethan Room ever stood in the current incarnation of Heronden Hall seems unlikely. Which Georgian manor the rooms were removed from, however, has yet to be discovered. Sources note several different manors in Kent County that called themselves Heronden – notably a Georgian-style manor in Sandwich and a small Georgian manor built on the same estate as the Gothic Revival Heronden Hall that was also referred to as, you guessed it, Heronden.
Stateside research into the provenance of Fort Raleigh’s oak paneled room has been virtually exhausted. Leads were followed across the pond to the Kent County Archives, Historic England, and the University of Cambridge. Historians there advised the next step in our quest would be to contact the estate’s owners to view personal archives on site.
So, does anyone fancy a trip to merry ‘ole England?