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‘Gardener’s Cottage’ by a carpenter made

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Hidden wonder: As the building was dissected the cedar timbers of the roof and an internal wall were exposed. The trusses were pegged at the top with treenails of cedar, some still in good order.

On the northern extremity of the grounds of the Fairmont Southampton, there once stood a small but classic Bermuda house, home to the Todds of the later 1600s, and most latterly, the DeRosa family.

In 1983 the building and remaining land of the once extensive Todd property (part of the original shares granted to a leading figure of the Bermuda Company, Sir Nathaniel Rich, after the Norwood survey of 1616—17) was sold to West End Properties Ltd, which owned the adjacent land on which now stands the Fairmont Southampton.

We write “once stood”, as the old home is no more, in one sense, but will likely outlive many other historic buildings in another, given the remarkable story of its rescue by demolition.

That may sound contradictory, but had the building not decayed severely in recent times, its ultimate and extraordinary value to Bermuda’s architectural heritage might not have been fully appreciated, an understanding by the doyen of modern studies of the Bermuda house, Edward Chappell, that resulted in the project you will read about today.

While it is a pity to lose any Bermuda house of antiquity, in this case the loss of the actual building in situ is outweighed by the saving of the building within the masonry (literally, in part), a timber structure that is likely more than 300 years in age.

In the absence of a known name, we shall dub the building “Gardener’s Cottage”, for that is what it is called in the research files of the Bermuda National Trust, which are being compiled for their book on the historic buildings of Southampton Parish for its Architectural Heritage Series.

According to their files, the Joseph Todd family acquired the property in the mid-1600s and the “Gardener’s Cottage” was likely built before 1708, possibly by Joseph’s nephew, Joseph Tudor Todd.

Eventually a Todd descendant married a member of the Mallory family, who owned and built “Waterlot”, across the main road to the north, but “Gardener’s Cottage” later passed through Frith and Inghams to the Williams family, but it was sold to the hotel in 1983.

So “Gardener’s Cottage” has a reasonable pedigree, which has now been backed up, chronologically speaking, by the recent project.

In late years, Margaret Lloyd, one of the founders and enduring supporters of the Architectural Heritage Series, brought the “Gardener’s Cottage” to the attention of Edward Chappell, who has been studying Bermuda’s historical architecture for over 25 years: the Island is indebted to Ed for that service.

Due in part to the decay of the building, Chappell deduced that it contained a Bermuda cedar frame house within the masonry one and that that building was of considerable antiquity.

With the concurrence of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Department of Planning Heritage Officer, Richard Lowry, the Historic Buildings Advisory Committee and the Fairmont Southampton, a plan was devised, led by the National Museum, to extract the timber house from the remains of the partly-masonry “Gardener’s Cottage”.

A team was assembled in early May to take “Gardener’s Cottage” apart, record and number all the timber components and store them for eventual display as the only Bermuda timber home on exhibition.

The archaeologists would be Ed Chappell and Dr Brent Fortenberry (who had earlier in 2014 conducted an archaeological excavation in the only cellar room in “Gardener’s Cottage”), while volunteers and others were Dr Thomas James, Larry Mills, Andrew Harris, Scott Henderson, John Burnard, Allan Mello and Dr Edward Harris, with Margie Lloyd most kindly keeping the group going with picnic lunches.

Over a seven-day period in May 2014 the building was carefully taken apart and the timbers of the original house that had not later been replaced with masonry were all largely recovered.

Houses in Bermuda were mostly built in timber until the early 1700s, when stone came into use for the walls.

The original cottage was timber-framed throughout, and the exterior walls would have carried laths with plastering for weatherproofing.

The interior wall between the hall and the parlour (the two principle rooms of the house) still had its laths and original plaster and was taken away more or less intact: the laths are split, rather than sawn Bermuda cedar.

Wooden pegs, or treenails or trunnels, were used to attach the upright timbers of the walls to the wallplate and some of those were intact enough to be driven out with a metal bolt.

Larry Mills, who has also studied Bermuda houses for some years, was delighted to ‘see the use of dovetail and mortise-and-tenon joints throughout the timber building: it was an experience that is unlikely to be repeated, as we took the structure apart, and it will be an exhibit without parallel in these islands’.

As Ed Chappell has noted on the building as a whole: “While it is sad to lose it, the building has received more study than any other early Bermuda building that I am aware of. It has generously advanced our knowledge about early timber construction on the Island, and we hope it will rise again as an exhibited frame and building exhibit at the National Museum or elsewhere.”

It is unlikely that we will have another chance to recover such an early Bermuda timber-framed house and so thanks are extended to Fairmont Southampton, Bermuda National Trust, Bermuda Government and others who helped the archaeological team to snatch such a major piece of early Bermudian heritage from the jaws of oblivion, towards which it had been sailing, almost on rhumb line, a fixed course.

Edward Cecil Harris, MBE, JP, PHD, FSA is Director of the National Museum. Comments may be made to director@nmb.bm or 704-5480.

Historic: On the left is a view of “Gardener’s Cottage” on Gibb’s Hill, Southampton in May 2014, after some years of decay, while the centre image was taken from the air and shows the entry porch and the state of the roof. On the right, the roofing slate has been removed and the Bermuda cedar trusses over the parlour yet stand proud after 300 years.
Infil: After the removal of the chimney, the easternmost truss of the parlour demonstrates the later infilling between the timberwork with stone.
Larry Mills guides the removal of the upper triangle of the western wall of the parlour, complete with original cedar laths and lime plastering.
Ed Chappell has been studying the evolution of Bermuda houses for over 25 years; here he is working on Gardener’s Cottage.