What the heck is the United States Flag doing flying over a house in England???
It is strange and serendipitous that Sulgrave Manor is only two hours from Sarum College, presenting our Trinity pilgrims with an opportunity to visit the ancestral home of our own first president, as we bear witness to the early foundations of the Anglican Church, and the first articulations of our civil liberties, in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
(from Wikepedia, and the Sulgrave Manor Web site)
In 1539 or 1540 the Crown sold three manors, including Sulgrave, to Lawrence Washington, a wool merchant who in 1532 had been Mayor of Northampton. In 1656 a descendant, John Washington of Purleigh, Essex emigrated to the Colony of Virginia. He is notable for being the great-grandfather of George Washington, who from 1775 commanded the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War, and in 1789 was elected first President of the United States.
Lawrence Washington had Sulgrave Manor house built in about 1540–60, at the northeast end of the village, of local limestone. The structure contains a kitchen and buttery, a great hall, and a great chamber, with two smaller private chambers.
The great hall has a stone floor, and its Tudor fireplace contains a salt cupboard carved with Lawrence Washington's initials.
The house has a projecting two-story southwest porch, over the doorway of which are set in plaster the royal arms of England and initials "ER" for Elizabeth Regina commemorating Elizabeth I, who acceded to the English throne in 1558. The doorway spandrels are decorated with the Washington family coat of arms: two bars and three mullets or spur-rowels.
We will also be attending a morning service at St. James the Less in Sulgrave. As you may know, Trinity Episcopal Church In Southport CT is the owner of the Sulgrave paten.
