Historic Gardens of Virginia 



A beautiful and luxuriant hedge of tree-box, about four feet 

 high, pungent and aromatic in the sun, spreads across the front 

 lawn in an unusual design and walls in the grass walks that lead 

 to the house. An interesting feature about the hedges at Red Hill 

 is that they are of tree-box, clipped and kept short, instead of the 

 dwarf-box generally used for this purpose. 



The house, which was frame and painted white, consisted of a 

 two-story dwelling with an east wing. On the front porch every 

 one stopped, involuntarily, to admire the extensive view, the long, 

 gradual slope of the ridge, planted with tobacco and wheat, the 

 wide lowgrounds of waving green corn on the Staunton River, and 

 the dark green wooded hills of Halifax County across the stream. 



As one entered the front door, the charming wainscoted Colo- 

 nial hall in the two-story addition built by Patrick Henry's son, 

 John Henry, extended straight through the house. The north door 

 gave a delightful view of the cool and shaded rear lawn, while 

 the south door seemed to be a frame for the distant landscape 

 dazzling in the brilliant sunshine. 



On the side lawn, to the west of the house, screened off from 

 the rear by a high box-hedge and a tremendous holly tree, is the 

 kitchen — one of those proverbial Virginia country kitchens that 

 were so far away that hot battercakes had to be brought to the 

 house on horseback! When the west wing was built by Mrs. M. B. 

 Harrison, great-granddaughter of Patrick Henry, and the present 

 owner, a kitchen was added to the house as well as other modern 

 conveniences. 



The east wing, a story-and-a-half Colonial structure, was the 

 original house. It had high white mantels and a crooked, narrow, 

 boxed-In stairway, and the massive brass locks on the doors were 

 given Patrick Henry as a fee In a lawsuit. It was In one of the 

 rooms of this wing that Patrick Henry died, sitting in his three- 

 cornered mahogany chair, facing death with Christian fortitude. 



At the end of this wing, through the shed that Patrick Henry 

 added because "he wished to hear the patter of the raindrops on 



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