Springhouse/ Lye House

The dimensions of the northern core of the Springhouse/Lye House (18 by 15 feet) roughly correspond to those noted in a 1750 tax assessment for a springhouse on the Samuel Painter property. This springhouse core is a banked one story structure with a gabled roof. A two-story three-bay wide addition was later appended around 1770, to the south. This addition was used by the Painter family for fulling, soap and lye making, as well as many other daily farm and household chores. When Revolutionary War soldiers approached the Painter home in 1777, it is said that Jane Painter was making lye. The name has stuck. In the 19th century the Painters were tailors, weavers, hatters, and produced fulled (fluffed) wool fabric. Fulled wool is thicker and denser than ordinary wool material, more like boiled wool of today. In the early 19th century there was state of the art textile machinery in the building used by the Painters for weaving and dyeing of wool. You will notice a gravel road passing by the ruins. In the 19th century the building stood along an ealry colonial road. The road to the south east led towards the intersection of Street Road and Birmingham Road and the current gravel road to the north led down to the area of the current Brandwine Picnic Park near Lenape. In the 20th century farm roads on the Mather farms were improved to become the basis for the public roads used today. When the Country Club was developed and the golf course was built that section of road was abandonned. In the 20th century the structure was in sound condition but after standing unused it fell into disrepair. The building’s original fabric was preserved and stabilized as a ruin in 2004. Proceed east along Country Club Road toward the large serpentine stone house just up the hill.