Historic Landscapes

Visitors would enter Crowfield via a long allee which served to frame the view of the two-storied brick house on a raised English cellar. On either side of the pilastered doorway were two windows, while on the second floor there were five. On either side of the main structure were one-storied brick flankers or dependencies. These design elements are representative of Georgian architecture which was popular in England and the colonies during the eighteenth century.

William Middleton had spared no expense in the architectural detail of Crowfield. The corners of the house featured quoin work in stucco, and above the windows, stucco lintels. The north and south entrances featured Flemish bonding with light red stretchers and glazed headers of bluish-purple. Belt courses were laid out between the floors acting as a final accent to the overall design.

Click here to view Historic American Buildings Survey of Crowfield.

The landscape and gardens at Crowfield were designed to accent the main house. Crowfield represents a blending of formal garden designs with the Picturesque landscape movement. Meandering walkways, along with temples were joined by ha-ha's which allowed animals to graze but be separated invisibly from the rest of the landscape. The landscape and gardens design elements contributed to a rural effect which were both idyllic and pastoral.

Considering Middleton's close ties to England, his melding of the formal landscape school with the picturesque is quite creditable. Crowfield is an example of the transmission of cultural landscape theories from Europe to the low country and their successful adoption in garden design.

Rudy Favretti, a noted historic landscape architect, noted a mixture of elements from both the Italian and French Renaissance through the creation of bilaterally symmetrical gardens and a medieval influence with the use of mounts. Favretti characterizes Crowfield "as an avant garde landscape which was quite fashionable."

Favretti divides the landscape and gardens of Crowfield into four areas:

• The entrance, which incorporates the area of the circular pond, north to and including the main house, with its domestic dependencies (kitchen, laundry, smokehouse, slave cabins).
• The Lawn, or lower garden, north of the main house to the earthworks and including the bowling green to the west and a bosquet or wooded grove to the east.
• The parterre, or central garden, which incorporates the mount and a patterned parterre garden.
• The canals or upper garden, incorporating the canals and the island with a temple. (Favretti 3-5)

Map of Crowfield