CLAREMONT MANOR 



HE Claremont plantation, situated in Surry County, 

 on the south side of the James River, about half 

 way between Richmond and Norfolk, was bestowed 

 upon Arthur Allen as an original grant from Eng- 

 land. 



The romantic legend, told along the river, is 

 that two brothers, Allen and Eric Guelph, princes of the house of 

 Hanover, were rivals for the love of a high-born English lady. 

 Eric was successful in his suit, but on his wedding night was fatally 

 stabbed by his brother, Arthur, who then fled from England. 

 Taking refuge in America, he is said to have changed his name 

 to Arthur Allen, in which name he held the large grant of land 

 given him in 1649. Upon this plantation, a few years later, he 

 built the house known as Claremont Manor, which today is an 

 excellent example of the best architecture of the seventeenth century. 

 Built of bricks, said to have been brought from the mother 

 country, this old house combines, as do other homes of the early 

 Colonial period, the deep English basement and spacious high- 

 ceiled rooms of the first floor, with the quaint dormer windows and 

 high-pitched roof of the second story. As the colonial workmen 

 were wont to build on the line of a letter of the alphabet, these 

 three stories, each, conform to the shape of the letter "T." 



The house is said to be an exact replica of Claremont Manor 

 in Surrey County, England, which, during a long period, was a 

 favorite royal residence. It was the property, at one time, of Lord 

 Clive, then of Princess Charlotte and her husband, Leopold the 

 First, King of the Belgians. It was the home, also, of the Duke of 

 Kent, the father of Queen Victoria. 



Claremont-on-the-James is massively and strategically built. It 

 has its brick-walled underground passage to the river, which was 



[27] 



