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A Web Exhibit produced by the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Historical Society.

Attic Door

This unusual door led to the attic. The decorative shaping of the door is attractive, but also necessary. The slope of the roof required that the door conform to its angle to swing open.

Features of note:
board and battan construction
hole at bottom may have been cut to allow a cat to rid the attic of mice.
hand-split lath could be seen in the walls throughout Belle Grove. Most lath after the early nineteenth century was sawn rather than split.

lath - thin strips of wood nailed to exposed framing members with slight gaps to give the base coat of plaster a substrate.

Definitions are from:
Lounsbury, Carl R. An Illustrated Glossary of Early Southern Architecture and Landscape. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

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