Twenty years ago, two young archaeology students, David Brown and Thane Harpole, surveyed a farmstead site located in Gloucester County, Virginia, dating to the late 17th to early 18th centuries. The property was originally patented in the 1670s by Robert Bryan and was eventually part of the adjacent Belle Farm plantation. After the Civil War, […]
From Picture to Print: Developing a New Model of Fairfield Plantation
We are excited to announce that the Fairfield Foundation, through a generous donation from Harry and Judy Wason, will develop an interactive, 3D printed model of the Fairfield manor house that will be housed at the Center for Archaeology, Preservation, and Education (the CAPE). We will create the model using drone-based photogrammetry and 3D printing […]
A Look at Colonial Drains
Archaeologists are always finding remarkable features that provide new insight into the colonial world. One type of feature that shows up with some regularity, yet receives very little attention, is the lowly drain. Serving a strictly utilitarian, though very useful, purpose and intentionally buried upon completion, drains are rarely remembered and generally forgotten. On many […]
Locating North End Plantation
For several years the Fairfield Foundation and the Middle Peninsula Chapter of the Archeological Society of Virginia (MPCASV) have been slowly compiling research and initiating archaeology on one of the largest historic plantations in Mathews County. An advertisement for the property in 1830 states that it was “deemed unnecessary to describe this well known estate, […]
