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Site PG64 and the Stone House
Site PG64, along with PG65, saw the longest excavations at Flowerdew (Deetz 1993: xii) by Barka and his associates. The excavation was a highly publicized and well-funded operation. As a result of these circumstances, and the existence of substantially preserved archaeological remains, site PG64 is relatively well documented and understood. The Stone House , or manor, was built by Piersey after 1625 and appears to have been used until 1650. Unlike the more common earthfast structures that lay further afield in the plantation (Deetz 1993: 42-43), the manor has a solid stone foundation made from siltstone imported from Bristol and a double-pitched red-tile roof. It features a two-storey hall-and-parlor design, with more public larger room and H-shaped hearth on one side (for cooking, crafts and eating), a smaller, more private parlor to the side (for sleeping and storing valuables) (Deetz 1993: 35) and an attic for storage.
The house yard includes an English burial s ite marked with four wooden posts. Three individuals were buried there during the use-span of the Stone House: two adults and an infant. South-west of the house there is an enigmatic dug enclosure known as the Redoubt (Deetz 1993: 39), while there is a likely unfinished cellar pit to the east of the house and a tile kiln to the northeast. Besides the colonial-era finds, PG64 has produced a wide array of Native American pottery, testifying to habitation at the site as early as 800BCE. Some of the Native American wares potentially date as late as the 1700s, which could indicate their continuing presence in the area in the later 17th and possibly the early 18th c.
The architecture of the Stone House can be explored in 3D in Sketchfab (best viewed with Safari or Firefox). To zoom in or out, please use the mouse scroll button. To tilt and rotate the model, press and hold right click. To pan, press and hold right click+left arrow+shift. To re-center the model, double-click any part of the image in the direction needed. The annotations are clickable and point to important features on site. The Explore in space 3D interactive tool provides a more detailed understanding of how the building relates to the excavation plan, the grid as well as the finds.
Views of Norman Barka’s excavations at the Stone House (University of Virginia Library Archive)
A digital reconstruction of the Stone House, after D. Wilson and A. Dakouri-Hild, based on a building replica (2018)