Step Your First Step
Into the Historic Passage

The hall and parlor floor plan of the Woodville mansion house is a typical footprint for a house of its age and size, and the layout was not uncommon in other parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Virginia. On the first floor, there are two major rooms, a hall, defined here largely by its dining function, and a parlor opposite the hall, which was used for family socialization and the entertaining of guests.

 

These two major rooms are separated by a central passage that runs across the width of the house. One can enter the passage directly from outside the house through doors at both the front and rear. Typically, the passage was an important location for displaying portraits, maps, or other family possessions and for architectural refinements designed to impress visitors with the owner's status and good taste. A framed silhouette, the only known likeness of Woodville's first owner, John Neville, now hangs here.

 

The architectural "refinements" in the central passage at Woodville are modest at best, but it retains some outstanding woodwork in the front door with its massive wrought hinges. Foliated cross­garnet hinges on the door of the small closet beneath the stairs are also important. They are the first pair of such hinges that Edward A. Chappell, the Shirley H. and Richard D. Roberts Director of Architectural History at Colonial Williamsburg, has observed in place anywhere in the United States. Also significant is the detailed but restrained woodwork seen in the door architraves throughout the passage and in the balusters, handrail, newel post, urn and column stair brackets, and stairs to the half story above.