By Ralph Muldrow

Drayton Hall near Charleston, SC, continues to hold on to some of its secrets despite every sort of investigation. Two of those are hidden in plain sight but they raise interesting questions.  Festoons of flowers often graced the stately homes of England for parties and amusements;  swags of flowers intermingled with grape vines evocative of gracious pleasures.  They would be hung like drapery valences over windows, doors, under cornices and on garnished overmantles bountifully.  A family seat in the ‘wilderness’ would understandably emulate those niceties but as ‘frozen’ bowers.  That such meticulous wooden flowers had already been innovated in three dimensions in England at such later seventeenth century mansions as Petworth House and early eighteenth century mansions such as Blenheim Palace.  They are a testament to the innovative work of master carver Grinling Gibbons (1648- 1721), the Dutch born British artisan whose fantastic carved architectural elements graced London buildings, Cambridge buildings and great manor houses of the day that predate the construction of Drayton Hall (c. 1738).  While Gibbons carved his decorations in limewood, the floral carvings at Drayton Hall near Charleston, SC, appear to be mahogany, including the wafer-thin flower pedals.

At the same time, false doors placed in Drayton Hall rooms contain large yet off- center diamond- shaped patterns made of blackened glazed headers that are asymmetrical with the doorway surrounds in the rooms in which they appear.  Were they part of an abandoned project?  Were they practice brick masonry motifs for masons to train with?  They seem meant to be hidden or seldom shown ensembles.  The false doors have long been missing.  In the same rooms both the carved wooden flowers a-la Grinling Gibbons and the large diamond patterns co-exist…  but why?