Landscape in Peril: A Cultural Assessment of Thomas's Wharf and Woodlands Farm, Northampton County, Eastern Shore, Virginia

by Lewandowski, Bonny A.

LANDSCAPE IN PERIL: A CULTURAL ASSESSMENT OF THOMASS WHARF AND WOODLANDS FARM, NORTHAMPTON COUNTY, EASTERN SHORE, VIRGINIA by Bonny A. Lewandowski Committee Chair, Terry L. Clements Department of Landscape Architecture (ABSTRACT) This thesis develops a philosophy for management, preservation, and interpretation of Woodlands Farm and Thomass Wharf in Northampton County on Virginias Eastern Shore. The U. S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service methodology for historic properties, including cultural landscapes, is used to complete this study. The National Park Service method includes four interrelated steps: (1) historical research, and (2) inventory and documentation of existing conditions, (3) site analysis and evaluation of significance and integrity, and (4) recommendations for future management. Essential to the future of Woodlands Farm and Thomass Wharf is continued use of the property while retaining character defining features that make them significant. The most suitable management philosophy for a historic property that allows for protection and maintenance of significant features, as well as future use and development, is Rehabilitation. Thomass Wharfs significance is derived from fragments of many periods and histories can be read on the landscape; a palimpsest. The U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service evaluates a landscape much as one evaluates a historic building, defining it as a type or from a specific time period. The U.S. Department of the Interiors criteria for significance does not address a landscape, like Thomass Wharf, as part of the continuum of history. Rather the study of landscapes is limited and the criteria does not acknowledge a sites broader continuum of significance. Landscapes that are records of change and evolution, palimpsests of a people, culture, and place, need to be identified and deemed significant for that quality.