FIRST STEP TAKEN TO RESTORE CURTILAGE VIEW
Poplar Forest Newsletter, Spring 2002

Poplar Forest took a first step toward implementing its long-term landscape restoration plan by starting to re-establish Jefferson-era views in front of the house.

Over the winter, staff began removing trees and bushes that had grown up along the driveway from Tomahawk Creek up to the house, about a 300-yard stretch of road.  Visitors this year will be able to see the meadows that were once the front half of Jefferson’s curtilage.  

The clearing represents the first phase of the long-range plan to re-create Jefferson’s curtilage, the 61-acre enclosed landscape that Jefferson designed in 1812 surrounding his house.

“Jefferson divided the property into zones,” explains Barbara Heath, director of archaeology and landscapes. “The curtilage was the largest section of the domestic part of the plantation. It served as the transition from the highly ornamented grounds nearest the house to the agricultural fields.”

The curtilage would have enclosed orchards, vegetable gardens, slave quarters, and farm-related buildings.  The eventual curtilage restoration will be based on documentary evidence such as maps and letters and archaeological excavations.

At the heart of the quasi-rectangular curtilage stood Jefferson ’s house, surrounded by a highly ornamented landscape and circular drive. Farther from the house, the views became increasingly agricultural until the farm fields began beyond the curtilage fence.

This year visitors will be able to clearly see the land rising up from the creek valley and stretching north to the house. Further archaeological work is needed to establish the quantity and layout of the trees that Jefferson planted within the curtilage. 

Fundraising permitting, the next goal in the curtilage restoration project will be to reconstruct the fence that defined its boundaries.  Using the 1813 map of the plantation, which clearly delineates the curtilage, archaeologists last year surveyed the boundaries, marked the fence location with stakes, and began searching for fence evidence in the ground. They are close to determining what kind of fencing defined this space.