" Within the Richmond City limits, Agecroft Hall is a medieval English building that was found in Lancashire back in the 1920s by a wealthy tobacco heir named Thomas C. Williams Jr. Now his plan back then was to dismantle it and bring it back home and re-erected kind of as the anchor of a new real state development that he wanted to put up on his family farm. He saw his dream of rebuilding Agecroft has his own private family home. However, he died in 29 and the stocked market crashed, kinda put an end to the development plans. However, it is a beautiful house museum well worth a visit. And were gonna visit with its executive director Richard Moxley. Come on."

" This is our wicket gate. It's a defensive type of gate to prevent people from just entering without being welcome. You have there as you saw, duck down to get through this gate."

" Yeah"

" And if your were somebody that you shouldn't be------"

" [unk]"

" Perhaps that person would hit you on the head."

" That is very clever. And wicket refers to the shape------"

" To the shape of the gate."

" as in playing crocket?"

" That's right, that's right."

" Got you. Got you. Well this is a spectacular place. Now tell us a little bit about what were looking at here."

" Well, what you're looking at is one of the most decorative facades of the house here."

" Yes."

" With this wonderful black and white work."

" Yes. What's it called?"

" It's also called an England magpie work referring to that bird, that black and white bird in, in England. You see this decorative [unk] foils there and the diapering up above."

" The end, gable end, that's called diapering?"

" That's correct."

" Okay. Now what's the point of all these decoration? Is somebody basically showing off?"

" That's just what they're doing. They're showing off their wealth and their prestige in front of all the world here. To be able to afford something like this required a lot of money."

" Cause it was so labor intensive to create."

" To be sure."

" I mean indeed, what were looking at is the surface of it but its 3 dimensional. There really are timbers that are cut precisely like that------"

" That's right."

" to create those shapes."

" This is all a post and beam construction like a barn but very decorative on the outside."

" And this is from the late 1500s?"

" That's correct."

" Now, what about the windows? They're, they're so beautiful. That must be a 20ft expansive [unk] -----"

" It is. Look at these wonderful 20-foot expansive leaded glass windows. We have photos, documenting that this window came over all in one piece with the glass in place."

" Yes."

" Without breaking one pane of glass, so goes the legend."

" In the 1920s."

" That's correct."

" So they crated the whole thing"

" That's right."

" And hoisted in into the hold of [unk] and brought it all the way home to Virginia."

" No."

" It's an exquisite thing."

" Wonderful."

" Now the interior of the house is set up primarily as a museum these days------"

" That's right."

" right? With an enormous collection of some very priceless Elizabethan and Jacobean furnishings."

" Sure."

" I understand that there's a bed here that they'd love to have back home in England."

" Well that's right. We have a wonderful painted bed from the late 16th century with its original paint on the bed. We've had it analyzed and in fact, there's a number of coats of paint on it, but at the bottom is that original 16th century paint."

" Would that have been very out of ordinary to have a, a decorated, colored, polychrome bed like this?"

" It is. It is very unusual. There's few examples in the world today. Especially with their original paint. Most of the beds you see are either plain or just dark oak."

" And there's also a collection of tapestries?"

" There is. We have a wonderful collection of tapestries. Varied. One of the most prominent ones that you'll see in our great hall, is the so called Mortlake tapestry------"

" Yes."

" from the Mortlake factories and that tapestry features the wolf hunt. And you can see in that tapestry the wonderful action of the dogs chasing the wolf and the hunter about to spear that dog and kill it. The wonderful colors come out in that tapestry. The reds and the blues. Probably, the most comfortable and enjoyable room would have been the library. The library is an expensive room. Probably about 30 by 50ft. In fact, you can see, where were standing, the extent of the library here extending the entire length of this wing here and all the way------"

" So, this whole wing is all one room?"

" That's right. It's all one room. A wonderful library which they paneled inside. The dominating feature of that room is the so called refectory table. About 16 feet long. It's a magnificent in laid object with carved lions at its feet."

" And this of course is before television, so, thousands of books."

" That's right. Wonderful books that Mr. Williams most collected and inherited from his father and his grandfather."

" Now Richard, could we take a quick look at some of the gardens?"

" Sure! Let's take a look. We're walking down this [unk], we're walking down this very formal alley of little leaf lindens or lime trees. You can see, they have a rather grotesque shape. And that's the result of this [unk] that is a form of pruning."

" Now we're here in April, so they haven't leafed out yet. But the objective is to create squares or geometric shapes."

" That's right. It'll result in a, a lush green canopy in the summer."

" Now, who was the landscape architect here?"

" It was Charles Gillette. A very prominent landscape architect in Richmond and you can see, he's created a masterpiece here."

" Oh! This is fabulous! Now, what was his inspiration for the design of this garden?"

" This was inspired by the Palm garden at Hampton court. That was Henry the VIII's palatial garden."

" Henry the VIII's garden. How many tulip bulbs in here?"

" We plant 5,000 tulip bulbs each year."

" Yes."

" Is there, a plan in terms of the colors and how you've mix them up?"

" Sure. The gardener takes great paints to combine one next to the other and the blooming sequence as well."

" He's got the whole, kind of the whole color scale here. Anything you can imagine."

" Yes. There's a tulip here for everybody."

" I love these stronger colored ones, these and don't you call these parrot tulips?"

" These are the black parrots and they'll turn a little bit blacker but they are very striking tulips."

" Yes. When the sun hits and they're amazing!"

" 5,000 bulbs, Wow! That's a lot of work and then you pull them out, right?"

" That's [unk]"

" What? Annuals for the summer?"

" That's right. In a few weeks, we'll be pulling them all out and replanting this bed."

" We have an Elizabethan Herb garden filled with herbs of the period. So let's take a look at that."

" This is quite some gate."

" Isn't that wonderful. Wrought iron work."

" Now, this is a very orderly spot."

" It is. Then we have series of gardens here, a very formal nut garden with vegetables patterned here and herbs------"

" Yes."

" in, in decorative designs."

" But complete bilateral symmetry everywhere you look."

" That's right. And you'll see this garden here is a mirror reflection of itself."

" Yes. Now, what about the plant collection here?"

" Well, we have a lot of different plants. And this garden features John Tradescant the Younger. A English botanist that came here to Virginia in the 1630's to collect plants and take them back to England. And today, we celebrate the plants that he collected not only in Virginia but Central and South America as well."

" Oh really? Okay."

" So this is a collection of different species of plants."

" So it's not just herbs but medicinal plants, flowers, vegetables."

" It's a mixture of a lot of different types of plants known and enjoyed by the English during the 1630's."

" I love symmetrical gardens. So, this is right up my alley. It's a little bit early for it still, isn't it?"

" It is. It has a way to go. But you can see, [unk] a spectacular garden. It is a, it is a garden of a collection------"

" Yes."

" of a collector."

" And it's a garden room that's appropriate to the estate, cause again, it's from the 16th or 17th, did you say?"

" That's 17th century."

" 17th century. And what's this unusual orange kind of upside down plant?"

" That's called the Fritillaria. It's in the [unk] family and it's native to Persia. But Tradescant knew about that plant and did collect it."

" Its not a fragrant plant, is it?"

" No, it isn't. It has a unique skunk like smell to it."

" Excellent."

" So you don't wanna plant too many [unk] ."

" Now, Once again this garden room features of you at the river, a wonderful way to end the tour."