Now that most spring blooming flowers have wrapped their show, the highlights of early summer flowers have just started blooming at London Town. Of all the Magnolias, the Southern Magnolias (Magnolia grandiflora) are the grandest and the largest. Their evergreen, leathery and glossy leaves steal the show by themselves. But as soon as the first white blossom opens up, that one flower can steal the whole show! London Town has at least 5 mature Southern Magnolias, with 'DD Blanchard' being the best of the bunch. The underside of the DD Blanchard leaves have a rusty brown color and their flowers have a cup shape. Southern Magnolias are often found in moist woodland and hardwood hammocks. They are excellent as a specimen tree or shade tree. Illicium henryi is another late spring to early summer bloomer at London Town. Aesthetically speaking, Illicium (Star Anise) can be the star of any shade garden; the elegant soft rose pink droopy flowers are absolutely breathtaking. But wait till you learn more about how botanically important and ancient this plant is. The Latin name 'Illicium' comes from Latin from 'allurement' which refers to the aromatic scent of leaves when crushed. To me they smell exactly like crushed Mango leaves (Mangifera indica). Illiciums belong to the moist understory and shady habitats. Illiciums are one of the oldest Angiosperms in the chain of evolution. In fact, their vascular tissues are more similar to gymnosperms than angiosperms. In the coming weeks, if you visit London Town, be sure to trek down the woodland garden paths to find Illicium henryi and then on to the ornamental gardens to cherish the beauty and fragrance of the Southern Magnolia 'DD Blanchard'. Both these plants are great addition to any garden that gets dappled shade. #mayapples #turtles

Today, let's have a look at a couple of habitat connections you can find at Historic London Town and Gardens. If you stroll through the woodland gardens in the coming weeks, you will not miss the May Apples (Podophyllum peltatum), happily growing under the luscious shade of the upper canopy trees. The umbrella shaped leaves protect the delicate white flowers underneath. They prefer wet feet and indirect sunlight. More than that though, they are probably happiest when the box turtles visit them. Why? Well reproduction is the key role why plants are putting in their energy towards to eventually make flowers that make the fruits and seeds. What's the purpose, if plant species can't thrive and reproduce? Box turtles apparently are the *only* dispersal agents for the May Apples. When they eat the fruits, they are able to digest the seeds out in a way that helps break the dormancy of the seeds. The box turtles enjoy the food and the shade around the May Apples. The May Apples, however, truly depend on the turtles to do the complete the cycle of reproduction for them. Next time you work around a grove of May Apples in a moist area, make sure you leave room for the turtles, or if you have box turtles in your yard, add some May Apples to complete the habitat. Can you guess the other habitat connection you can find and should explore at London Town? Humans and plants! There are ample activities and connections to be made for all age groups. Experiential learning can happen in any garden, at anytime and in numerous forms. Gardens are transient, but once a connection is made to a habitat or a species, that is surely everlasting. Find your connection to your habitat at London Town's gardens and share with us! Thanks for celebrating #NationalPublicGardensWeek #NPGW19 with us all week! Photo of May Apples by Dinny White #mayapples #turtles

Peonies (Paeonias sps.) certainly steal the show in May in the ornamental gardens at Historic London Town and Gardens. Very aptly, Paeonia sps. are referred to as the 'King of Flowers.' London Town has a gorgeous collection of both the tree form of Peonies as well as the herbaceous ones. Tree peonies usually flower before the herbaceous ones. If you have observed peonies closely, you will notice that the buds and base of the flower is usually loaded with black ants. The black ants and peonies share a mutually beneficial relationship. The ants help eradicate other floral feeding small insects, and in return, the peonies provide sweet nectar as food for the ants. There is a misconception however, that ants help open up the peony flower. In fact, peony flowers can open with or without the ants present around the flower. The ants are also harmless to the growth of the peony plant, so you can leave the ants alone and let them relish the peony nectar. The tree peonies are London Town have been in the ground for 30 plus years. They have the most stunning display of flowers. Unlike the herbaceous peonies, the tree peonies maintain their woody stem throughout the year. Their leaves are slightly more deeply dissected than the herbaceous ones. When planting tree peonies make sure they are at least 8 -10' further away from any trees/shrubs, otherwise the peony roots will compete with the tree roots for water and nutrients. Also, tree peonies are drought tolerant. Excess water can suffocate them. Enjoy the pictures of the brightest red-maroon to the softest pastel coral bell peony colors. But honestly, the pictures don't do any justice to the luscious blooms of the peonies, so I absolutely recommend coming to London Town to enjoy them in coming weeks. No peony will disappoint you! Make sure you notice the ants and how they work their way around the blooms.

Most nurseries are loaded with early to late summer blooming perennial and annual flowers. Today, I am going to talk about some examples of foliage interest and flowering ornamental species that will last you throughout summer. What will get you the most bang for your buck? Even though London Town's gardens are known as a beautiful example of woodland plant combinations, we have a vibrant ornamental garden, which gets new additions of annuals and perennials to suit our events needs to create a beautiful display garden. When choosing a summer color palette, try to also think of foliage color and blooms that will last you at least till mid summer. One of my favorite foliage color low annual is: Hypoestes phyllostachya, the pink polka dot plant. It belongs to the Acanthaceae family and it is native to Southeast Asia. You can add this as filler in pots, garden bed corners, use for edging, or as a contrast to hostas or bright yellow marigolds. It lasts well through late summer and is stunning throughout the season. Another foliage plant that gets overlooked is ornamental ginger. Yes, they take up lot of water, but they are fabulous by themselves in a container/garden border or as a backdrop for low annuals in a sunny spot. You should bring them in to over winter though. Geraniums are, in my view, winners of the all summer lasting flower interest plants. They are tender for Zone 7A and 7b, hence labelled as 'annuals.' They come in variety of colors. One hanging basket or a single pot of geranium flowers will give you color throughout the season. Try bright red geraniums with chartreuse green sweet potato vine and petunias; it will definitely bring life in your garden bed/patio instantly. But it will also last well into deep summer. Now speaking of woodland garden summer color, one plant that hasn't gotten much attention in the nursery trade is: creeping hydrangea. It can take some sun and dappled shade and has pretty white mid summer blooming flowers. Lastly, I have to share with you a Jack in the Pulpit picture: Arisaema thunbergii ssp urashima -- that has put on a rather stunning display in the woodland gardens. So many plants and color pallet to choose from! Share with us your favorite all summer blooming annuals/perennials and shrubs. - Meenal Harankhedkar, Director of Horticulture

For the first time in at least a century (if not 200 years), this arched architectural feature is revealed! We believe that this feature was associated with the bar and tavern during William Brown's tenure (c1760-1790). Our best guess as to when the feature was bricked up is sometime during the late 1700s or early 1800s. If you look closely at the above image, you will see an archway made out of bricks. Though this image doesn't show it too well (it is best seen in person), the original archway opening ended at the course of bricks immediately above the blue wooden chair rail. Integrated into the brickwork are a few pieces of wood. You can see them at the bottom of where the arching starts on both sides as well as near the bottom of the archway itself. The image to the left is a close-up look of the upper right side of the arch with the boards circled. These pieces of wood, called nailers or nailer boards, are necessary in colonial masonry if you plan to have wooden trim on your wall. These nailers are how you would attached trim to the wall. Imagine then that if the archway was open, then you'd be able to see through the opening into the other side of the wall. If you were standing in the tavern room (as in the image below), then you would probably see into the bar area on the other side of the wall. The image below shows the other side of the wall (looking towards the tavern room). This side is much rougher than the tavern room side. There are wires and poorly patched brick visible. We know that during the Almshouse period (c1823-1965), that this space was a small closet or pantry. That may be why this side of the wall is in worse condition than the tavern room side. The image below shows some of the other wires and cables running through the wall at the top of the wall. We are still internally discussing what the revealed archway and brickwork tells us about the building. Our current plan is to start designing and constructing a wooden bar for that space (where the closet used to be). We may be able to have a portion of the bar installed later this year. If so, we'll keep you updated. #williambrownhouse #preservation #worcestereisenbrandt

An important component of the William Brown House preservation project focused on repairing some deteriorating roof joists and brick work. The image above shows how the wooden joists and framing connect to the brick walls. The wooden joists go through the bricks and then connect with some of the roof supports on the other side. The curved wooden pieces (knees) are meant to provide additional stability. The image below shows the area where deterioration had occurred. Some of the wooden knees had essentially crumbled and a small section of brick had also fallen down. Though the issue had not reached a critical point, catching it now definitely made it an easier fix than 4-5 years from now. To fix the attic issue, the Worcester Eisenbrandt crew first built a new wooden support frame that will stay in place. The frame is meant to provide support in case other joist/wood sections start to deteriorate in that area. It also helped hold up that part of the roof while the workers fixed the brick and wood. Overall, it took about a week to carefully remove the bricks, clean them, fix the wooden joists, and replace the bricks and mortar. #williambrownhouse #preservation #worcestereisenbrandt

An notable architectural feature of the William Brown House are the two central chimneys. As you might expect, the chimneys get battered a lot by the weather and needed a lot of attention for this preservation project. The Worcester Eisenbrandt (WEI) crew is spending a lot of time repointing the brickwork and just checking the "health" of the chimneys. Below are some pictures of their work and the chimneys. The image below gives us a view of how the chimneys are capped. Before this project we at London Town had no images, and thus no good idea, of how the chimneys were capped. You should see three pieces of grey slate on each chimney. They are bolted in place to prevent rain, snow, and other debris falling into the chimneys. If you look closely at the picture to the left, you should notice a small gap in between the bottom of the slate and the top of the chimney. This is put there on purpose so that the chimney stacks and "breathe" a bit when the temperature changes. The image below shows the WEI crew in action as they start the repointing process. The crew is removing the older, deteriorating mortar. For the sides of the each chimney facing "inward," the crew accessed the roof through a hatch in the attic. To access the outward facing sides, WEI brought in a construction lift. The image below is a closer look at the brick and mortar after the deteriorating mortar has been removed. The WEI crew will next clean the brick and mortar joints before adding new mortar. #williambrownhouse #preservation #worcestereisenbrandt

Did you know that April is Maryland Archeology Month? In honor, we've asked Amelia Chisholm, Lab Manager at the Anne Arundel County Archaeology Lab and with The Lost Towns Project to share her latest article: "An Interesting Chicken Burial at London Town" When archaeologists discover something for which they don’t have a frame of reference, how do they make interpretations? An interesting case from Anne Arundel County concerns a pit full of chickens. During the 2004 field season at Historic London Town, archaeologists discovered directly underneath the plow zone a shallow, five-sided, flat-bottomed pit. At each of the points of the pit was an articulated chicken skeleton with no visible remains of their heads. The interior of the pit contained the fragmentary bones of other fowl, including, perhaps, a turkey. There were no other artifacts contained within this pit, and it was not associated with any other features. London Town has been a place of constant human activity during the recent past. Beginning in 1683 until roughly 1790 this place was a colonial port town and between 1824-1965 a large portion of the town land became the County poor house. When was this pit dug? Who could have deposited the chicken? What could it mean? It was unusual that the remains were laid out so carefully: if the chickens had been butchered to be eaten the bones would be in disarray, not complete skeletons; and one would suspect that if the chickens had died from something like disease a regular conical hole would be dug and the bodies disposed of less carefully. Once the usual answers seemed to be at odds with the data, archaeologists began to wonder if this was evidence of ritual activity. Reviewing research done at other archaeological sites showed that chicken burials have been discovered in a number of places across the southern United States. A burial of three chickens in a pit under the floor of a cabin of an enslaved person at the Levi Jordan Plantation in Texas, a completely articulated chicken buried upright with its wings outstretched under the floor of a quarter at Frogmore Manor Plantation on St Helena Island, South Carolina, and the articulated skeleton of a hen buried on top of an egg under the floor of an enslaved person’s cabin at Kingsley Plantation in Florida are just a few examples of similar burials. The common thread between all of these burials was that they occurred in contexts related to enslaved persons. Careful research at Kingsley Plantation, for example, showed that the early 19th century enslaved peoples were mostly African-born and came from a wide array of nations including Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia . Animal sacrifice was and is currently a common practice across many nations in Africa, especially among the Ibo peoples of modern day Nigeria. Chickens are routinely sacrificed to mark births, deaths, dedications, and purification rituals among other acts. In the Americas, similar rituals occur to this day among the Gullah culture in South Carolina and in creolized religions like Santeria, Haitian Vodou, and Obeah. To try to determine if this pit may have been associated with African or African American enslaved persons, it is crucial to understand where it was found. Archaeologists know that many London Towners were slave owners and some were directly involved with slave merchants and captains. Four slave ships are confirmed to have docked and sold 845 enslaved people from Sierra Leone, Angola, Benin, and the Gold Coast at London Town . More specifically, Stephen West, Sr., a prominent London Town merchant, ferry owner, and ordinary (inn) keeper owned Lot 86, the parcel where the chicken burial was discovered. He owned seven enslaved women and men at the time of his death. West built a workshop on Lot 86 that was rented to and then owned by carpenter William Brown, who is also known to have owned enslaved individuals. West also ran the tavern located next door on Lot 87 and staffed it with enslaved labor. There is tangible evidence of the enslaved individuals who lived and worked in the Carpenter’s Shop with the discovery of a child’s burial under the floor of the workshop. As the burial was contemporaneous with the use of the workshop, it is believed that they were buried while the building was occupied. Subfloor burials within a house have been seen historically in Ghana and are seen archaeologically in enslaved contexts in the Caribbean. This burial, then, is another example of how African traditional cultural or ritual practices may have been translated in America under a system of slavery. It is then no stretch to suggest that this chicken burial could be the material remains of African religiosity or social practice by enslaved peoples or their descendants either living in London Town or, later, in the Alms House. It may never be clear exactly who buried these chickens and for what purpose, but this one small feature offers tantalizing hints of the complex beliefs and practices of a past inhabitant of London Town. **** You can join the Lost Towns Project this Friday, April 12 from 4:30 - 6:30pm for Archaeology Lab Open House: Come celebrate Archaeology Month!! (The lab is located on the campus of Historic London Town and Gardens) Learn about more programs happening for Maryland Archeology Month here: https://marylandarcheology.org/ #archaeology #slavery #chickenburial

Hi everyone, my name is Nate, and I'm 2.5 years old. Recently, my parents took me to Historic London Town and Gardens. This is my review, as transcribed by my mom (she actually works at this cool place!). No April Fool's! This review is 100% true. You can even visit too if you want! We started in the Visitor Center. I found lots of hats in the gift shop. Cool black ones with three corners. I didn't understand why we didn't just spend the rest of the time right here. I loved that there were lots of stairs to climb. I hear they have some elevators too, but I don't like being boxed up. (You might also notice I've got my membership sticker on - because I love stickers! They even have a pirate kitty visitor sticker for kids too.) Downstairs in the Discover London Town exhibit, Mom and Dad tried to get me interested in the history of the site and people. But more important to me, there were some chairs I could move around (with a little help - not that I wanted it). I pulled one up to a screen so I could listen to the music better. Plus things happened whenever I touched the screen. Mom said it had to do with archaeology, but I don't really understand what that is. I got mad every time the music ended. More music or else! Speaking of music, I loved banging on the instruments in the Sound & Sensory Garden out in the gardens. Again, I'm not exactly sure why we bothered doing anything else. Although yes, it was cool to walk the trails and point out the colors of the pretty flowers. And leaves! Forget buying things in the gift shop - my favorite souvenir is always a leaf I found on the ground. I then enjoyed checking out the Pagoda in the ornamental garden. I was actually here when I just a month old! Now I'm climbing up on the bench all by myself. Those gardens are really pretty. Mom says they're going to get even prettier as the spring goes on. She says that's why lots of people choose to have weddings here. Next we headed to the Historic Area. In the Carpenter Shop, I found this hammer thing. I think it's sort of like my toy broom, but bigger and cooler. I really wanted to take it home. Oh well. We finished up in the big brick building called the William Brown House. Mom tried to explain how it was really, really old and that the museum was doing a lot to try and preserve it. I just wanted to run through to see the river on the other side. By then, we'd been at London Town for about 2 hours. And I hear there are things I didn't even get to explore, like the Lord Mayor's Tenement. Looking forward to next time! Hope you can join me!!

We're excited that Worcester Eisenbrandt (WEI) is back on site! They started last week and will work through the end of April on the southern side of the William Brown House. Their goal is to repoint the bricks/mortar, clean and repaint the wooden trim, and repair/preserve all of the windows. After the southern side is finished, WEI will move inside to fix some deteriorated joists in the attic, remove plaster so that we can see the tavern-related passthrough on an interior wall, and repaint/preserve the tavern room door. As the images below show, the work on the windows can't come soon enough. We believed that these windows, by being on the southern side (most weather-protected), would not need too much preservation work. Well, it may be that we're wrong on that score. One of the windows has a lot of deteriorated wood and junk material in it. It is the space above the window frame below the arched brickwork. If you look closely, you'll see a lot of insect eggs and other trash. Something else that is interesting is that there appears to be ship-style caulking (oakum) at the top of the space. We just discovered it this week so we do not know exactly how old it is. It is a small surprise and something we will look at more closely. You'll see that we also disturbed some ladybugs that had nestled into the window framing for their winter hibernation. The project has just started, so we will keep you all updated as the next 5-6 weeks go by. All of the work described above is just the first phase of this project. Our second phase, starting this summer, will be focused on upgrading the HVAC and electrical systems. We expect at least 4-6 months of engineering work and research to occur first to help us decide how best to upgrade these systems. So, we do not expect any of that work to start until later this year. Knowing exactly how the electrical and HVAC systems will be upgraded is necessary for our tavern bar project. There is a circuit breaker box, our alarm system, and other HVAC controls near the passthrough and tavern bar area. Before we can start to reconstruct the bar, we need to know if we can move those controls and systems or if they have to remain where they are. Since this will take another 6-8 months to figure out, we do not have any immediate plans to start reconstruction of the bar. This work is being funded through the State of Maryland's bond bill program, Anne Arundel County, the Maryland Heritage Area Authority, Preservation Maryland, and some great donors. #williambrownhouse #preservation #worcestereisenbrandt

One of the neat benefits this preservation project has given us is the chance to climb around the scaffolding and look more closely at parts of the building you can barely see from the ground level. This post focuses on an interesting exterior feature of the building on the western elevation. The pictures will be larger than usual so that you can examine them more closely. So just keep scrolling down to read the text either before or after each image. (The picture above is just a shot I took from the scaffolding that I thought was neat.) Anyway, the picture below shows a fairly visible diagonal feature in the mortar. It is definitely visible from the ground level. For years I have seen it and just assumed it was a repair and/or something that popped up over the years. The image to the left is a close-up taken from the scaffolding. You can clearly follow the thicker line of mortar in a diagonal from the upper left to the bottom right. A quick glance from this perspective does not seem to tell you much more other than the mortar seems thicker at this location. However, as the picture below shows, if you look at the side of the building from more of an angle, there appears to be a bigger structural problem. If you want to take a moment to try to figure it out, don't scroll beneath the image (the answer is there). If you follow the different layers of brick, particularly the top level of the belt course (the brick that sticks out from the wall by about a 1/2 inch), then you'll see that the part of the building farther away from the camera is higher than the part of the building closer to the camera. Below is a close-up view of the belt course and where it changes. This image hopefully gives you a better sense of both the difference in height and that the brick leading away from the camera is level once the height changes. It appears that during the construction of the William Brown House, there was a compounding error on a portion of the southern section of the western side. Maybe the mortar was just laid on a bit too thick in between each layer of brick when compared to the other portion of the wall. Or some other construction error occurred. What seems fairly clear is that when the two "segments" of the wall came together (the northern and southern sections on the western side), the masons discovered that they didn't quite match. They had gotten out of level. One portion was higher than the other portion. At that point they probably only had two options. One was to undo a lot of work and start again. The other option is what we see. Slowly make the brick layers level by changing the mortar thickness as the building went higher. Anyway, that's the prevailing theory. Without a more in-depth investigation into the construction of the building or a builder's journal or diary left by William Brown, this is the best conclusion we have. We're happy to hear of anyone else's ideas. So far, this has been one of the more interesting discoveries about the William Brown House. We still have more weeks of preservation work to go, so who knows what will turn up. #williambrownhouse #preservation #worcestereisenbrandt

Throughout the years, the William Brown House has served multiple functions (colonial tavern, almshouse/poorhouse, and historic house museum). Each of these periods of use has altered the building in some way. Because of these alterations, and due to the lack of documentary evidence for the colonial period, we often have to rely on architectural investigations and similarities between the Brown house and other period buildings to better understand how the Brown house may have originally looked. During this preservation project, we really wanted to investigate the porches on the William Brown House. There is a lot of deterioration and rot on them and they need to be repaired. But before we approved $20,000 - $40,000 for porch repair, we thought it'd be a good idea to see how historically accurate the current porches are for the colonial period. Thanks to the Maryland Heritage Area Authority, we received a grant this year to investigate the historical accuracy of the porches. We contracted with GWWO Inc./Architects out of Baltimore. They created the conditions assessment report a few years ago that was integral to the start of this project. You can read the full report HERE if you want (Copyright 2018 GWWO, Inc./Architects). Below is a summary of their findings. We at London Town will be reviewing their report and thinking about the best way forward these next couple of years. Precedents and Similar Buildings Tulip Hill, 1756 :: Mount Clare, 1763 :: Upton Scott House, 1763 William Paca House, 1763 :: John Ridout House, 1763 :: Whitehall, 1766 Chase-Lloyd House, 1769 :: James Brice House, 1772 Front Porch (Ravine / East side) The current porch seems fairly accurate. The brick and stone porch is an indication of this entrance's status as the main entry point. The current preservation project will repoint the brick work to help keep this porch in good condition for the future. Southern Porch The current porch is most likely an acceptable design for the colonial era. This is a side entrance and thus not meant to be an entrance for the general public. This porch is in middling shape. Some of the steps need replacing and it requires a repainting. Back Porch (West side) This porch has the challenge of having the highest elevation change due to its location over the cellar entrance. Before the preservation project started there was a pair of staircases flanking this porch. We took them down due to deterioration. Once the preservation project is finished, the recommendation is to construct a new pair of stairs similar to the old ones. Riverside Porch This porch appears to be "overbuilt" for the colonial-era sense of aesthetics. This is because we should be thinking about this building from a Georgian (symmetrical) perspective. As such, this porch and set of stairs should be similar to the southern porch. To make that change, we need to think about how best to remove the porch and pillars without damaging the underlying brickwork. The final decision about what to do with the riverside porch will be made later in this preservation project. #williambrownhouse #preservation #worcestereisenbrandt