Anachronism

Cycling out on Woodland Avenue you see the housing stock deteriorate into a jumble of  shabby row houses and blocks of small business premises with garish signs - hair salons, evangelical churches and food outlets of different provenances: African, West Indian, Chinese (or maybe Vietnamese/Hmong, I'm not sure how to tell). But on the way back Guineapig Zero's local knowledge guided our wheels past this unlikely survivor of an earlier age: 1764 to be precise because the date is set in stone right on the front face of the old stone farmhouse which now has the address 1817 South Vogdes Street. Over 250 years after it was built this little dwelling, which would not look out of place almost anywhere in Britain, still stands in its unlikely surroundings, caught in the flow of time like a tree-trunk wedged across a waterfall.

The farmhouse, presumably with its animals, barns, fields and orchards, was here when, in 1781, French troops under General Rochambeau marched with American troops under General Washington to the final battle at Yorktown, ending the Revolutionary War. They landed in Newport, RI and marched south. From Philadelphia, they marched across the pontoon bridge at Market Street and down Woodland Avenue to Darby and on to Chester Pike. Only a few other buildings remain from that time and most are better preserved than this one. In recent years heritage groups have attempted to rescue it from dereliction and it does seem to have been re-roofed and otherwise restored, indeed it is inhabited.

It was only when enlarging the image to look at the detail of the stonework  that I noticed something remarkable that I would not have recognised until recently.  The original joints between the stones are decorated with small black pebbles that were impressed into the mortar courses when still soft, rather as a child might press currants into the uncooked dough of a gingerbread person. The unusual technique is called galetting or galletting, and is traditonal in certain parts of  southern England. My knowledge of this curiosity comes solely via a friend who is something of an expert on vernacular architecture. One of his examples of the same thing can be seen  here. So thank you Stefan, I bet you never dreamt your knowledge would be applied so far from home.