Ancestral Links
Buildings in England connected to people who went on to play a major role in history of America and the countless ordinary Europeans who sought a new life in the States.
Southwark Cathedral (Cathedral Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie)
Borough, London
Listed Grade I in 1950
Southwark Cathedral was originally the medieval Augustinian priory of St Mary Overie and became the parish church of St Saviour after the Reformation. The church became an Anglican cathedral in 1905. Constructed of knapped flint with stone dressing, and a tower and transepts of ashlar, there is fabric dating from the early C12 onwards. John Harvard, who emigrated to Massachusetts and endowed Harvard University was born in Southwark in 1607 and was baptised in (the then) St Saviour’s. On 4 July 1907, the tri-centenary year of his birth, the Chapel of St John the Evangelist, located off the North Transept, was rededicated as the Harvard Chapel with funds given by members of Harvard University. The stained glass window by John Lafarge was installed in May 1905 donated by a Harvard graduate and then American Ambassador to London, Joseph Choate. The window depicts the baptism of Christ and contains the arms of Emmanuel College Cambridge, which John Harvard attended, and Harvard University.
Harvard House
High Street, Stratford-upon-Avon
Listed Grade I in 1951
This timber-framed house is dated 1596 with C18 and C19 rear additions. It was once the home of Catherine Rogers, mother of John Harvard, the founder of Harvard University in the United States of America. It was restored by the novelist Marie Corelli in 1905-9, the work financed by Everard Morris of Chicago, and presented to Harvard University for use by students and visiting Americans. The three-storey building has an attic with a tile roof with rear brick stacks. The first and second floors are jettied on consoles and the gable has enriched barge-boards. The entrance has a Tudor-headed wide-board studded door with strap hinges and 6-pointed handle plate. The windows are five-light wooden ovolo-mullioned and transomed windows with leaded glazing and there is an oriel on the first and second floor. The timber-framing is enriched with a great variety of carved decoration including consoles with figures, fleur-de-lys, lettering reading ‘TR: AR: 1596’ (Thomas and Ann Rogers). Inside, features of special interest include a mid C17 dogleg stair with square newels, moulded balusters and handrail, front upper room with late C16 panelling, fireplace with elliptical brick arch and plaster overmantel with 3 shields, fleur-de-lys, lion rampant reversed and rose. Other rooms contain panelling and there are also surviving chamfered beams and doors.
Former Immigrant Station and railway platform
Kingston upon Hull
Listed Grade II in 1994
Former immigrant station and railway platform built in 1871 by Thomas Prosser for the North Eastern Railway Co. A yellow brick building with stone dressings and hipped slate roofs. This building was used exclusively to handle immigrant passengers from north-west Europe to America. They travelled by sea to Hull, then by train to Liverpool, where they embarked for America. For health reasons, amongst others, they were segregated from other passengers. This makes the station part of the heritage of many Americans.
36 Craven Street, Benjamin Franklin House
City of Westminster, London
Listed Grade I in 1970
This terraced town house of 1730 with c.1792 alterations was the residence of Benjamin Franklin, Agent to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, 1757-72 and from 1770 to 1774 of William Hewson surgeon, physiologist and friend of Franklin. While lodging at this house, Franklin was mediating unrest between Britain and America, as well as pursuing his interests in science, health, music and letters. The building is listed at this high grade in particular for these historical associations. It is now a museum dedicated to Benjamin Franklin.
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Orangery at Twyford House
Twyford, Hampshire
Listed Grade II in 1984
A mid-C18 brick orangery where Benjamin Franklin reputedly wrote his autobiography.
Meath Home
Godalming, Surrey
Listed Grade II in 1988
House of c.1785 for N Gobold, much altered mid nineteenth century. This was the home of General James Ogelthorpe, founder of the American colony of Georgia (1732) until his death in 1785.
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Hook Manor
Semley, Wiltshire
Listed Grade II* in 1966
A classic Wiltshire manor house in dressed limestone, built 1637 by Thomas Arundell and remodelled in 1935 by TL Dale. South east room features an open fireplace and fine plaster ceiling including motifs of whales and sailing ships and the initials of Ann Arundell and Cecil Calvert, 2nd Lord of Baltimore, married 1628. The ceiling records the colonization of Maryland in 1633 when Cecil's brother, Leonard Calvert, sailed in the Ark and the Dove. The house is therefore important for its architecture as well as its historical association with the early colonization of North America.
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