So…. I am trying not to be like totally “what the hell are they doing to Ashbridge House at Indian Run Farm” but is this a historic reservation? I ask because given the storms this summer and the age of this historically classified structure, what in the hell are they doing? I can understand rotting wooden porches being removed and it looks like concrete is being used to shore up walls, but wow this is startling isn’t it?
I grew up in old, occasionally historically classified houses (the house I was born in was built in 1811 in Society Hill and was historically classified in Philadelphia). West Whiteland has said all along it is to be preserved. So I am still going with that, even if it looks terrible right now.
According to a 2003 Pottstown Mercury Article this was to be preserved all along, but it’s a long time since 2003. It’s now 2020 (AKA the year from hell):
Now picture another moment. A small group of scrape-kneed youngsters sat on a vantage point overlooking that same valley, many years later, pondering their destiny along with other important matters such as, perhaps, how to avoid the chore of picking the cherries ripening on the trees for their ambitious and hard-working father.
These children looked down on a two-lane Route 30 close to where it crossed Route 100, from a hilltop that no longer exists. And where there is now a new Nissan dealership, they once ran a cider stand without any particular parental oversight, selling the sweet juice from their own orchard along with vegetables from their garden, and lived carefree lives of exploration and discovery in a time when, “there weren’t any rules.”
Would that we could all be granted a childhood such as these children shared.
Then walk with these same children, now adults, among the shrink-wrapped architectural remnants of their youth, and share the memory of that time in that place on a bitter and wind-whipped day that fails to wrest from them any of the joy of those times spent together there. The centerpiece of that time was this collection of stone buildings; that springhouse, the great barn, the animals that lived, were loved and died and were buried here; those special trees; all are almost holy to them, and all will continue to speak to us of the way things were, once upon a time.
Because, whatever feelings any of us may have about “development,” we can’t be sorry that this pocket of history will be preserved much as it was in the thick of the present, so that busy shoppers can pause and view it, walk within its whispered past, and perhaps grasp something of what it all means.
I have been watching this house a few years. I have photos of 2018, 2019, and the generously shared 2020 photos. The reason I am concerned is because of how exposed everything is. However, it also looks like things are being shored up with concrete. So I am going to hold my breath and share photos. I will remind people I covered this in March 2018 and March 2019.
I remain curious as to what was saved or will be saved on the inside. Thanks for stopping by.
