Green Spring Plantation Greenhouse/Orangery and the Probable Evolution of the Domestic Area Landscape

摘要

The report has been prepared at the request of the National Park Service (NPS) to research the landscape context for the so-called 'nursery,' a presumed greenhouse/orangery ruin found at the Green Spring plantation site, located in James City County, Virginia. This undeveloped site is a unit of the Colonial National Historical Park. This investigation is intended to provide the NPS with additional information about the design and historical uses of greenhouses/orangeries within the colonial Chesapeake region, the probable uses of the ruined Green Spring structure in question, as well as landscape contextual information about the original Green Spring house and site and how they might have physically evolved over time. Working hypotheses about the evolution of the Green Spring landscape are offered to provide additional lines of inquiry for further examination by scholars and archaeologists. The primary intent of the project is to help focus future archaeological investigations of the site. It is hoped that these ongoing site investigations may better inform further site research, cultural resource documentation and management, and ultimately, future public interpretive programs at the Green Spring site.