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A Plan of Westover (Charles City County)
Copied after an unidentified surveyor
Probably after 1731
Ink and wash
Virginia Historical Society, Call no. Mss5:9 B9965:1
This plan of William Byrd II's Westover plantation records one of the first significant attempts to create a pastoral
estate on the English model in Virginia. Geometric gardens flank the main house, which seems about to be engulfed
by the vast, surrounding wilderness. One "retired" to such an estate to both cultivate nature, as Byrd would do in
his arbors, and to be inspired by it.
Image rights owned by the Virginia Historical Society.
Rights and reproductions
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