Gardens and Grounds FirstH
EXCERPT FROM
Two Centuries with Virginia’s First Families By Mary Miley Theobald
T
he men who moved the capital from Williamsburg to Richmond envisioned Shockoe Hill as a
parklike expanse anchored by Jefferson’s Capitol and a residence for the governor. But years after those two structures had been completed, the grounds remained in dire condition, cut by ravines and gullies, overgrown with scrub, and home to more goats than humans. In 1816, Governor Wilson Cary Nicholas (1814–1816) and the General Assembly authorized French engineer Maximilian Godefroy, then living in Baltimore, to tame the top part of the hill now called Capitol Square. His baroque plan enclosed the area and the mansion with a cast-iron fence, one that was removed in 1954 to make way for the brick walls that still exist today. It took Godefroy five full weeks to figure out how to deal with the impossible topography—how to lay out semicircular terraces, walkways, fence lines, fountains, and an avenue to the Governor’s Mansion—before he could start to sketch out formal rows of linden and chestnut trees and other plantings. He was paid $400 for his efforts, roughly $6,000 today. Richmonder John P. Shields took on the task of carrying out Godefroy’s ambitious plan. Nothing remains of this original layout. The oldest tree on the square, a large American elm, is perhaps one hundred fifty years old.
Style influences landscape as much as it does interior design, and in the course of two centuries, one vision replaced another as Capitol Square matured as a
PHOTO ON FACING PAGE BY MICHAELE WHITE, GOVERNOR’S OFFICE
The House & Home Magazine
public park. Shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, the square underwent its second major landscaping, courtesy of John Notman of Philadelphia, the same man hired by Richmond’s city council to design Hollywood Cemetery. Notman’s master plan included hundreds of native trees and shrubs such as tulip poplar, holly, and dogwood, along with preparations for the impending arrival of the gigantic George Washington statue, the base of which was intended to hold Washington’s tomb. (The tomb was never moved from Mount Vernon.) With fountains and curving pathways, Notman envisioned a more romanticized space than the formal Godefroy layout, which had never been completed. Once or twice a week, a band played on the grounds. The park was illuminated, probably with torches or cressets, and citizens
ouse LIBRARY OF VIRGINIA
This sketch shows the grounds in 1813 after the mansion was finished. Note the mansion in the upper center with the kitchen below it and the ravine that slashed in front of both. Originally, 11th Street separated the mansion from the Capitol. To the right of the mansion and kitchen is a parcel labeled, “Lot formerly used as a garden for the Governor.”
LIBRARY OF VIRGINIA
During the Robb administration, a double-basin fountain like the original one from the 1880s was installed (left). (Above) The grounds as they appeared in the 1850s when the Washington equestrian monument was installed.
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