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| Annie, Donna and the Builder break ground |
New Beginning for
Perrigo House
A large group gathered
Sunday afternoon to celebrate with Annie Patterson and Donna Heffner as they
broke ground for reconstruction of the Perrigo Boarding House across from the
Commissary. Construction is expected to
begin very soon.
Annie and Donna
currently operate their shop, The Spirit of Red Hill, out of the Board of Aid
Building next to the Commissary. It will be great to see their new project
develop.
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| Annie addresses a large group of friends gathered to help them celebrate breaking ground on their new project |
The business core of
Rugby is steadily being reconstructed and this project is expected to have a
substantial impact on that area – not the least of which is the visual impact
it will have on making the heart of the village seem more complete. Several
reconstructed historic structures are already in that area, including the
Commissary, the Board of Aid Building, and most recently Onderdonk House. Other
buildings in the area include the historic Print Shop, moved from nearby Deer
Lodge, and the Harrow Road Café, built in the mid-1980s.
After Perrigo – What
Next?
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| Yandilla |
Hopefully, one of the
next buildings to be reconstructed will be Yandilla, the home that once stood on
the corner lot between Horseshoe Bend Road and Beacon Hill Park, across from
Roslyn. It was a very interesting house with verandas on at least three sides.
The lot where Yandilla stood was sold a few years ago to someone who plans to
rebuild it.
Thanks to architectural
drawings recently received from Tom Martin, Rick Murphy would very much like to
see someone rebuild Stockton Store on land he owns along the highway to the west of the
Commissary. The two-story building,
which was used for a craft coop and community library in the 1970s before it
burned, has the potential for commercial or residential use. It could also possibly have a mixed use with
an apartment upstairs and a commercial/artist space downstairs. There are numerous photos of the exterior and
interior of the building. The back would
have a view of Newbury Pond, so it might be able to have a terrace or deck
overlooking the pond.
On the corner lot across
the side street on the west side of the Commissary was another interesting commercial
building, Tribby Store. Some photographs
show the exterior front and at least one side of this building, which was
probably a feed store at one point. While
it is not as well documented, it appeared to be a simple low building with a
front porch and at least a partial second story. It would probably not be hard to recreate a
building approximating its look and size. This would most likely be a
commercial building or artist studio, but a residence or mixed use might also be
possible. The back of this building would end in the wooded area that leads
down to Newbury Pond.
Photos from Michaelmas Festival
Kingstone Lisle
Restoration Work Beginning
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| Jim McBrayer photos from Michaelmas Festival |
Last week Steve Logan
said the crews that have done the other work are expected to begin work this
week on the exterior of Kingstone Lisle, the museum house originally built for
Rugby’s founder, British author Thomas Hughes. Historic Rugby is having this
work done thanks to a supporter who made a donation specifically designated for
the purpose of restoring and maintaining Rugby’s historic buildings.
While much has been done
in recent years on Rugby’s buildings, much more always remains. In addition to
the exterior siding work that will soon begin, Kingstone Lisle will soon need a
new wood shake roof. The Café also needs a new roof and new HVAC units, the
Commissary needs a new roof and the Board of Aid needs exterior siding repair
and painting. In addition, the Community
Building needs substantial work which by one estimate could total well over
$100,000. While Uffington House has
recently begun to be partially furnished to help interpret the stories of the
people who lived there, a substantial amount of work remains to happen there as
well.
Steve Logan said one
surprise came as work was done on Newbury House. As repointing was done one of the chimneys workers
planned to remove the aged analog television antenna. Someone suggested that they had better make
sure it does not work. Much to
everyone’s surprise the antique antenna somehow received four digital channels!
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| Fred Oliver |
Come say goodbye to
Deanna and Fred Oliver between 6:30 and 8 Thursday night at Jessie's house in Beacon Hill.
Desserts will be provided. The Olivers are moving to nearby Jamestown.
|
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| Inside the tent at the Harvest Gala |
Harvest Gala
A chill was in the air Saturday night as Historic Rugby held its
first annual Harvest Gala fundraising dinner in conjunction with the Morgan
Scott Project under a big white tent on the lawn behind Percy Cottage. Jessie
Gully greeted the nicely dressed guests as they arrived at the gate at Percy
Cottage. The boardwalk to the back yard was beautifully decorated for the fall
with hanging lanterns and arrangements of pumpkins, gourds and mums with bales
of hay and wooden fences leading to the large tent where musicians from
Knoxville entertained the guests.
From Jim McBrayer
We are starting to put
together the Appalachian Writers series for 2013 and welcome suggestions from
readers of Rugby Week. For this series, we are looking for people who
write about Appalachia from knowledge gained inside the region. We are
interested in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, whatever, as long as it conveys an
essence of Appalachia.
Big name writers always draw better crowds than unknowns, which is good, but they also are harder to get here and we can't pay an honorarium. If anyone has a personal contact with famous writers, we'd sure appreciate their help in getting that person to come.
We also would like to have other writers visit, but we would publicize their visit under a different banner.
Suggestions may be sent directly to me at mcbrayer@highland.net .
Big name writers always draw better crowds than unknowns, which is good, but they also are harder to get here and we can't pay an honorarium. If anyone has a personal contact with famous writers, we'd sure appreciate their help in getting that person to come.
We also would like to have other writers visit, but we would publicize their visit under a different banner.
Suggestions may be sent directly to me at mcbrayer@highland.net .
History Outing
There will be no history
meeting this coming Friday night, Oct. 12, because later in the month we will
be going to nearby Huntsville, Tennessee, to look at a new exhibit on
brick-making and the coke ovens in Scott County. This will be a great
opportunity, especially for those of us who haven't had the chance to explore
the grown-over tumbledown remains of the brickworks at Robbins or the coke ovens
at Glen Mary. The exhibit is at the
Doisy House in Huntsville, owned by the Scott Co. Historical Society.
We'll be carpooling there
on Saturday morning, Oct. 27. Bert
Walker, President of the Scott Co. Historical Society, will take us through the
exhibit. Watch for further details later in the Rugby Week.
Did you know that two of
the earliest Rugbeians, Charles Wilson and Charles Jefferson, started a
brick-making operation of their own in 1882, BEFORE the Robbins brickworks was
begun? Here's a quote from the July 1,
1882 Rugbeian: “Mr. C.H. Wilson and Mr. Jefferson are running the brick-making
machinery on the Robbins Road and have everything in full operation. The
machine will turn out 15,000 bricks a day.”
BIRTHDAYS
Oct. 8 - Chip Elliot and Mara Trumbo
Oct. 10 - Teresa Coker and Tom Lee
Oct. 11 - Mary Marlow
CALENDAR
Rugby is in the Eastern time zone, just barely.
Rugby is in the Eastern time zone, just barely.
| Saturday, Oct. 20 and Oct. 27 - Ghostly Gathering |
Ongoing Activities
Quilters’ Group - Wednesdays and Saturdays, 2–4 p.m. Eastern, at the Friendly House behind Christ Church Rugby Yoga – Wednesdays, 8:30 a.m. Eastern, at the Friendly House. Christ Church Episcopal -- Sunday morning services, 11 a.m. Eastern, year round; all are welcomed |
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| Michaelmas Daisies at Martin Roost |
Starry Fields
By Linda Konig
Robert Frost once wrote
a poem, The Milky Way Is a Cowpath,
in which he imagined the Milky Way as a pasture strewn with wildflowers and a
cow wandering beyond its fence up through those starry pastures. Surely, in his
mind's eye, he was seeing pastures strewn with asters as he looked up into the
night sky. The word aster means star, and it's the root word of asteroid,
astronaut, astronomy, etc.
This is the time of year
that we can find more earthly asters of varying kinds than any other season. Looking
through my wildflower books, I find that we on the Cumberland Plateau have no
less than 21 kinds of wildflowers that are commonly called asters in the
autumn. We have many other aster-looking wildflowers in the later part of the
year that aren't called asters yet are in the Aster family, such as Chicory and
the Oxeye Daisy. Then add to this number
the many fall bloomers in the Asteraceae family that don't look like asters
such as the Yerba-Da-Tajo, Devil's Grandmother, Joe Pye Weed, Rabbit Tobacco,
Blazing Stars, Lion's Foot, Ironweed, etc., and you begin to see the importance
of this family among our wildflowers in autumn. Yes, there are some aster
family wildflowers that bloom in other seasons, but most thrive in late summer
and autumn.
Here in the heart of
Rugby, we're perhaps more aware of a certain member of the aster family that's
been cultivated and hybridized for many, many years, yet it sprang from a wild
ancestor: the perennial Michaelmas daisy. We think of it as an English flower,
but it has spread hither and yon to other countries, partly because of its
hardiness and partly because of its popularity. But then, it may be popular
largely because of its hardy non-finicky personality.
This Week’s Editors:
Rick Murphy and George Zepp
