Preservation

Historic Brattonsville’s architectural preservation team works to conserve and interpret the buildings of this former plantation community. Over 65 years ago, a group of preservation-minded citizens organized to save the dilapidated buildings at Brattonsville.  Thankful for their work and the efforts of their successors, today, we strive to authentically preserve the surviving Brattonsville houses and outbuildings in order to tell the stories of the Black and white people that lived, worked, and died in this rural place.

Aside from conserving the fourteen original buildings and ruins, our work includes the care of numerous aged log structures moved to Historic Brattonsville in the 1980s, the design-build of new replica buildings, the curation of the architectural fragment collection, and the on-going research to better understand the architecture and landscapes of the Carolina Piedmont. Our work is informed by in-depth architectural investigation, also known as building archaeology, and materials analysis.  At our in-house architectural conservation lab, we analyze building materials, like paints and mortars, to better understand the materials used to construct and finish the buildings at Historic Brattonsville. These findings inform our on-going preservation efforts.