Super cool landmark…read more As per the plaque: Constructed in 1860, the Gatehouse was designed by the Baltimore firm of Thomas and James M. Dixon. Built in Tudor Revival Style, it provided for two living units, one on each side of the archway. The Gatehouse resembled a Swiss chalet and became a trademark of the Sheppard. The neighborhood children viewed it as the home of Hansel and Gretel. A tenant alwavs lived in the Gatehouse until 2005. The beautiful Rhododendron Drive was historically entered by driving through the Gatehouse. In 2002 the entire Charles Street entrance was reconstructed and cars no longer entered through the Archway.

This is my favorite area in Patapsco state park, I've brought many friends and family here over the…read moreyears. It's beautiful, you can find the ruins of an old mining camp and religious boarding school here. There's even a decent spot to jump off the train tracks into the water below, although take care because the water can be shallow in spots.

Probably one of the more interesting hikes that I have done in awhile. The hike will be quite…read moreshort, but you got hills and steps to get your work out on. I think the feel of the place is supposed to be spooky, unfortunately, I picked a spring break day to do it and there were enough teenagers running around here like savages (just kidding, they were all really sweet) it doesn't really have a scary feel to it at all. To explain the ruins, it was Roman Catholic school in Ilchester, Maryland. The ruins are near Ilchester and Bonnie Branch roads (so the Yelp location is pretty straight on). It was called hell house in the 70s after it was abandoned and vandalized and rumors have it a strange cult started living there. It also had an over zealous caretaker who had a gun and some dogs and would assault vandals. He was displaced after the school was set ablaze by arsonists. Hell House altar structure that most people take pictures of is at the top of a very steep hill, about a mile in. It used to have a large metal cross, and it is a very unique place for a photoshoot. For easy access, park in the lot for patapsco state park (right past the train tracks) where the trailhead is and start coming up to the left of the train tracks.

On the side of the road near where Greenbelt Road crosses the Beltway is this historical marker…read moresign denoting the Taoping Castle (circa 1750). It is on Walker Road. It reads: On this site, Isaac Charles and Nathan Walker erected a large white oak log house named for their ancestral stronghold in Scotland which the three brothers had fled after the failure of attempts to unseat George I, King of England, as ruler of Scotland. Isaac permanently settled here and obtained land grants for 188 acres. He and his three sons served in the Revolutionary War. The graves of Isaac and his son Nathan are north of here. Taoping Castle was the birthplace of Samuel Hamilton Walker (February 24, 1817 - October 9, 1847). Lt. Colonel of the Texas Rangers and Captain of the US Cavalry, he left home at age 19 to fight Indians and later became a leader and hero of the Rangers. His suggested changes to Samuel Colt's revolver resulted in Colt's success as an arms manufacturer. 1000 Colt-Walker pistols - the first, heaviest and longest revolvers ever issued to American forces - were purchased for the Texas Rangers during the Mexican war. Walker was killed in that war at the Battle of Hua Mantla, Mexico. The family cemetery is all that remains of the Taoping Castle estate.

We visited the Hampton National Historic Site in Towson this past weekend. This estate was owned by…read morethe Ridgely family for 7 generations from 1745 to 1948. The Georgia mansion home was the largest private home in America when it was completed in 1790. The estate was a plantation, one of the largest in Maryland, and hundreds of people were enslaved at the plantation until the end of the Civil War. The property is operated by the National Park Service, so a park ranger gives guided tours of the property. Our ranger guide was really friendly and did a wonderful job guiding us through the house. She taught us about the history of the area, the family, and the estate. She taught us about the architecture of the house and the artifacts visible throughout the house (many of which are original to the home). She also highlighted the lives and stories of enslaved persons who spent part or the entirety of their lives at Ridgely. There is some important Maryland history here at Hampton, and I really appreciated our experience. The house is undergoing some renovations right now and we were a bit tight on time, so we weren't able to explore the grounds (I think you can visit the slave quarters, cemetery, and more on the grounds), so I'd like to go back and explore more of the site's history. As an NPS property, it's free to visit and tour and definitely worth checking out. It's history hidden in plain sight - you've probably driven past it many times without stopping by!

We went on the 1 hour tour inside the house and were amazed by the renovation and details of the…read moreestate. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and answered our questions. I would recommend getting tickets to tour the house. We went last year and were only able to walk the grounds. Tickets are only $1 at recreation.gov.

I visited the 1719 Museum this past Saturday and really enjoyed the experience…read more The guided tour starts with a short film about the property that provides some great context for the rest of the tour. Then you leave the visitor center and walk over to the first structure of tour, which is a full-sized reproduction of a Native American longhouse. Longhouses (large multi-generational family homes made of logs, saplings, and tree bark) were once ubiquitous in Pennsylvania, including along the Susquehanna River. At the time the Hans Herr home was built, south-central Pennsylvania was home to several Indigenous tribes, including the Shenks Ferry, Conoy, Lenape, Mohawk, Nanticoke, Seneca, Shawnee, and Susquehannock peoples. The 1719 Museum collaborated with the Circle Legacy Center and members of the local indigenous community to build the longhouse reproduction in order to share the history of and honor Pennsylvania's native communities and educate visitors to the area. With your guide, you walk into the longhouse, where you sit down while the guide explains quite extensively about the Native communities in the area, the longhouse and its architecture, and the relationships between the indigenous people and the Mennonite people who made homes in the area. After the longhouse, the guide walks you over to the Hans Herr House. It was built in 1719 and is a 2-story, rectangular sandstone Germanic-style dwelling. It is the oldest dwelling in Lancaster County and the oldest Mennonite meetinghouse in America. The guide walks you through various rooms in the house and shares information about the Herr family as well as the larger Mennonite community in early Pennsylvania history. Our guide was Cindy, and she was incredible. I learned so much about the Native, Indigenous and Mennonite communities of 18th century Pennsylvania (and - in the case of the Native peoples - a much earlier history of their lives in Pennsylvania). She really educated us on a broad range of topics, while keeping the tour fun (I love fun education)! She made my tour extra special. If you're spending some time exploring Lancaster Counter, the 1719 Museum should definitely make your itinerary! In one place, you can learn a little bit about Pennsylvania's Native and Mennonite communities, and it's just a special place!

Why is the Hans Herr House significant and who the hell was Hans Herr?…read more The house itself is significant as it is the last remaining structure that is still standing from the original group of Mennonites who came to the Lancaster County area to escape religious persecution from their native Switzerland. The house is also significant in that it is the oldest structure in Lancaster County and likely the oldest remaining Mennonite meetinghouse in the Western Hemisphere. The original group traveled from Switzerland to Germany to escape religious persecution then after a governmental regime change they were forced from Germany to England where they met with William Penn who allowed them to colonize a portion of what is current day Lancaster County or when they arrived in 1711, the extreme most western frontier of Pennsylvania. One interesting piece of information is that the house did not belong to Hans Herr as it was built by his son Christian which is why his initials are over the doorway along with the inscribing mark of 1719. On the tour you are told why the name remained(s) Hans Herr House versus Christian Herr House but honestly I forget why. Maybe something just deferential from Christian towards his father or because of his father's status with the original group that came to the area or maybe everyone just liked the flow of the name more so it's based on tradition? The tour itself is around 40-45 minutes and it starts in the building which houses the gift shop and you are given a brief overview of the Anabaptist faith, the Mennonites who are direct descendants of the faith and a map which shows the route the initial settlers took from Switzerland to Pennsylvania. After that you are taken over to the house where you see the three rooms which make up the first floor (kitchen, bedroom and all purpose dining room-meeting room-family room) and the second floor which is where the eight children slept and finally the basement which is accessed from a side entrance outside of the house. You learn that the key to the home's design is that they didn't believe in wasting any space so every inch served a purpose such as not having hallways so as soon as you walk in the front door you're right in the kitchen. One thing worth noting, if you are someone who is hardcore hung up on only visiting historical places if they have lots of original items then this place might not be for you. There is not a whole lot original to the house that you can see with the exception of a piece of the ceiling insulation on the first floor (rye straw + manure + ??), the wooden crossbeam over the kitchen fireplace and the steps which go from the second floor to the third floor attic (obviously you can't use them). Past that I think most everything else was changed out in the 19th century when the house was still used as a residence or in the early 70's when the initial renovation occurred to make things into a tourist destination. If you want more original take a look at the bibles on display in the gift shop which are original to Hans and Christian. I wouldn't call the Hans Herr House a must see, but it's interesting enough and the tour is the right length to keep everyone interested along with being located close enough to most of Lancaster County's tourist elements. If you go: The 1719 Hans Herr House is open April 1 through November 30, Monday-Saturday, 9:00 AM-4:00 PM. Forty-five minute Herr House tours are offered at 9 a.m., 11 a.m., 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. This is not the tour information for their reproduction Native American Longhouse. That tour is offered at 10 a.m., 12 noon and 2 p.m and has an entirely different focus. Prices are currently Adults: $8, Children 7-12: $4 and Children 6 and under: free with a slight discount if you choose to tour both structures. There are also several special events that happen throughout the year and that information is available on their website.

An old library book, Gardens of Philadelphia, made me aware of Highlands Mansion, and…read morecoincidentally friends wanted to have a play date at Kids Castle, so on our way home we checked out Highlands. The mansion is apparently under restoration so I did not tour it, but I did see the gardens. While these gardens are nothing compared to the scale of the Brandywine DuPont estates, they are impressive for a former private residence. The most remarkable thing about them, to me, is their use of dramatic tall freestanding walls. Designers seem to agree that the best tool for success in landscaping is creating outdoor "rooms" or dedicated areas with hedged/fenced/walled/etc. boundaries to delineate and discern one outdoor space from another. I've toured many gardens domestic and abroad and I've never seen such a liberal use of wall structures that were apparently built solely for ornamental landscaping purposes (as opposed to ruins or retaining walls). Yes, you see decorative walls employed at Longwood and Chanticleer, but none so gigantic as these. Highlands was working with flat plain meadow and the goal seemed to be to create multiple garden-framed large lawn spaces, free of tree debris or too much shade to affect the grass. The walls are designed to tower as high as ornamental trees, but without the maintenance, root issues, leaf drop, etc. and they green-ify these walls with ivy trained all over them. Voila, vertical garden, architectural interest, height, and allowance for terrain diversification. I grew up adjacent to the trove of magnificent DuPont estates in the Brandywine Valley. I'm now fortunate to live 2 1/2 mi from Chanticleer and 7 1/2mi from Tyler Arboretum (Jenkins is closer but it doesn't appeal to me). I would recommend the destinations closer to me for full day visits, while Highlands gardens would only take a half hour for the formal area, and more if you choose to hike a trail or tour the manse. Still, it may be a half-day visit at most. While not a day trip destination on its own, it is a worthy stop if in the area, and I do recommend it to anyone interested in garden design who's already toured the others I mentioned. This is also an event venue, and the formal space is certainly made for such use, so it's lovely people can enjoy the space as it was intended when conceived.

While the mansion is still undergoing renovations so we were not able to include that and so my…read morereview may change in the future. Don't expect to take even a full afternoon visiting but it is a lovely preserved estate around the city. There's some goats, and the grounds are enjoyable to take an hour or so to walk with nice historical signs for context. There is some parking but it likely gets packed in high traffic times. I can't put it in my top gardens available for Philadelphia, it's good to have treasures like these to keep the sense of history and love of horticulture the area has long held.

Great historic house in town located in back of the resturant. Open sometimes during the warm…read moreseason. A must do on the shore.

The Old State House is on a quaint little street in a cute part of town. There was plenty of nearby…read moreparking when I went. The tours were free, but it wasn't crowded and we basically interrupted the guide's phone call. She did give us a personalized one-on-one tour after debating if she should wait to start the tour on the hour and said she'd be mad if someone else came in. She did give off a vibe like we were interrupting her sitting around time. Despite that, she was very knowledgeable on the history of the building, and it was nice to be able to look around with someone and ask them questions. The inside really seemed a lot like Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It's amazing the small, perfunctory building was in use until like 1933. There was a really nice painting of George Washington in one of the rooms and good information on early delegates. If you are in the area, it's a free stop and there's free parking, and there's good information and not too long to see. It was worth visiting. No gift shop though.

I really like old buildings and have enjoyed visiting Philadelphia and Washington DC old historic…read morebuildings. This building and the furniture inside of the Old State House were uninteresting to me. Though the stairs were enjoyable to see inside and outside. I posted a picture of the marble stairs on the outside. There was a volunteer finishing up with some people who liked history, and they said he was very knowledgeable. I was mainly there just to see the building. I would recommend if you are interested in Delaware politics and history go here.

Very interesting place to find out about local historical figures, and the facts of life back then…read more Though we've seen lot's of historic houses, but still discovered for ourselves something we didn't know before. Too bad not much of information about this place on the internet, but we were very glad to discover it and recommend it to everyone loving the history of this country.

This place never disappoints! You need to go back each season to appreciate the changing landscape…read moreand step back in time!