John Mercer's account with Thomas Barry (Ledger G) itemizes for 1749,
"building a Kitchen/ raising a Chimney/ building an oven." It is clear
from the features of Structure E, its relation to Structure B, and the
custom prevalent in colonial Virginia of building separate dependencies
for the preparation of food, that Structure E was the kitchen referred
to in Barry's account. Like this building, kitchens elsewhere were
almost invariably two rooms in plan--a cooking room and a pantry or
storage room. One of the earliest--at Green Spring--had a large
fireplace for the kitchen proper, and in the second room a smaller
fireplace, both served by a central chimney. An oven stood inside the
building between the larger fireplace and the wall.[157] At Stratford
(ca. 1725) the kitchen is similarly planned, as it is at Mannsfield
(Spotsylvania County).[158] Mount Vernon has an end chimney in its
kitchen, and only one fireplace. The floor of the kitchen proper is
paved with square bricks, while the second room has a clay floor. The
Stratford kitchen is paved with ordinary bricks. Such examples can be
multiplied several times.
[Illustration: Figure 48.--PAVED FLOOR OF ROOM X, Structure E, showing
HL door hinge in foreground. (See fig. 88a.)]
The physical relationship of the kitchen to the main house in Virginia
plantations was dictated in part by convenience and in part by the
Palladian plans that governed the architecture of colonial mansions.
Structure E's relationship to Structure B is representative of that
existing between most kitchens and their main buildings. Mount Vernon,
Stratford, Blandfield, Nomini Hall, Rosewell, and many other plantations
have, or had, kitchens located at points diagonal to the house and on
axes at right angles to them. Usually each was balanced by a dependency
placed in a similar relationship to the opposite corner of the house.
Sometimes covered walkways connected the pairs of dependencies, curved
as at Mount Vernon, Mount Airy, and Mannsfield, or straight as at
Blandfield in Essex County (1771). Marlborough, as we shall see, was not
typical in its layout, but the relationship between kitchen and house
was the customary one.
The thickness of the foundations in Structure E was the width of four
bricks--approximately 17 inches. As usual in the case of the lower
courses of a foundation, the bricks were laid in a somewhat random
fashion. The intact portions of the south and west walls revealed
corners of bricks laid end to end so as to expose headers on both sides.
The east wall showed pairs of bricks placed at right angles to each
other, so that headers and stretchers appeared alternately. On the north
wall of Room X bricks were laid as headers on the outside and as
stretchers, one behind the other, on the inside. These variations
probably are due to different bricklayers having worked on the
building simultaneously. Since oddly assorted courses would have been
below ground level, care for their appearance was minimal. Finished
exterior brickwork was required only above the lowest point visible to
the eye.
[Illustration: Figure 49.--NORTH WALL of Structure E, looking east. Sign
stands on partition wall between Rooms X and Y and in front of
rectangular section of burnt red clay, upon which fireplace hearth
stood. Projecting foundation at left may have supported an oven. Iron
slab (see fig. 50) lies _in situ_ with trowel on top.]
Brick sizes ran from 9 to 9-1/2 inches long, 4 to 4-1/2 inches wide, and
2-1/4 to 2-3/4 inches thick. These measurements are similar to those of
bricks in the veranda foundation and the added cellar cross wall of
Structure B. It is apparent from Ledger G that the elements in Structure
B, as well as the kitchen, were all built by Thomas Barry. Barry
probably used bricks that he himself made, according to the custom of
Virginia bricklayers, so that the archeological and documentary
evidences of the extent of his work in the two buildings reinforce each
other.
The protruding rectangle of bricks at the north end of Structure E
resembles the foundation for steps in Structure B. However, its position
directly adjacent to what must be assumed to have been the fireplace
precludes the possibility of its having been the location for a step.
Moreover, the pavement and doorstones at the west and south demonstrate
that the floor of the kitchen was at ground level, so that a raised
step at the north side would have been not only unnecessary, but
impossible.
[Illustration: Figure 50.--WROUGHT-IRON SLAB, found in Room Y, Structure
E, behind fireplace. Purpose unknown. Size, 6 by 35 inches.]
We know from the ledger that Barry built an oven and raised a chimney.
That the latter was a central chimney may be assumed on the basis of the
evidence of the two fireplaces placed back to back. There is, however,
no archeological evidence that there was an oven within the structure,
and every negative indication that there was not. The rectangular
protrusion, exactly in line with the end of the fireplace thus was
apparently the foundation for a brick oven, the domed top of which
extended outside the building, with its opening made into the north end
of the fireplace. Protruding ovens are known in New York and New
England, but none in Virginia has come to the writer's attention. On the
other hand, protruding foundations like the one here are also unknown
in Virginia kitchens, except where slanting ground, as at Mount Vernon,
has made steps necessary.
It may be concluded that Structure E was the plantation kitchen, that it
was built in 1749, that it had two rooms (a cookroom with fireplace
paving and a large fireplace, and a second room with a smaller
fireplace), that an oven built against the exterior of the building
opened into the north end of the fireplace, and that the first, and
probably the only, floor was at ground level. Archeological evidence
points to final destruction of the building by fire. (Mercer indicated
that fire had threatened it previously in the entry in his journal for
April 22, 1765, which noted "kitchen roof catch'd fire.") In the form of
datable artifacts, it also shows that the structure was destroyed in the
early 19th century, since the latest ceramic artifacts date from about
1800.
[Illustration: Figure 51.--EXCAVATION PLAN of structures north of Wall
D.]