Wilmington is the largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. The city was built on the site of Fort Christina, the first Swedish settlement in North America. It lies at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn after his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, who was prime minister during the reign of George II of Great Britain.
The Hagley Museum and Library is a nonprofit educational institution in unincorporated New Castle County, Delaware, near Wilmington. Covering more than 235 acres (95 ha) along the banks of the Brandywine Creek, the museum and grounds include the first du Pont family home and garden in the United States, the powder yards, and a 19th-century machine shop. On the hillside below the mansion lies a Renaissance Revival garden, with terraces and statuary, created in the 1920s by Louise Evelina du Pont Crowninshield (1877–1958).
Brandywine Creek is a tributary of the Christina River in southeastern Pennsylvania and northern Delaware in the United States. The Lower Brandywine is 20.4 miles (32.8 km) long and is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River with several tributary streams. The East Branch and West Branch of the creek originate within 2 miles (3 km) of each other on the slopes of Welsh Mountain in Honey Brook Township, Pennsylvania, about 20 miles (32 km) northwest of their confluence.
Bancroft Mills is an abandoned mill complex along Brandywine Creek in Wilmington, Delaware, United States. It has been the site of some of the earliest and most famous mills near Wilmington and was the largest and longest running complex along the Brandywine.
Centerville is an unincorporated community in New Castle County, Delaware, United States. Centerville is now known primarily for being the location of Du Pont family estates, as well as several other wealthy business families from nearby Wilmington, and the home of Governor Jack Markell.
Castle Hill is a 56,881 sq ft (5,284.4 m2) Tudor Revival mansion in Ipswich, Massachusetts built 1926-1928 as a summer home for Mr. and Mrs. Richard Teller Crane, Jr. It is also the name of the 165-acre (67 ha) drumlin surrounded by sea and salt marsh the home was built atop. Both are part of the 2,100-acre (850 ha) Crane Estate located on Argilla Road. The estate includes a historic mansion, 21 outbuildings, and landscapes overlooking Ipswich Bay, on the seacoast off Route 1, north of Boston. Its name derives from a promontory in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, from which many early Massachusetts Bay Colony settlers immigrated.
The Nemours Estate is a 200-acre (81 ha) country estate with jardin à la française formal gardens and a French neoclassical mansion in Wilmington, Delaware. Built to resemble a French château, its 105 rooms on four floors occupy nearly 47,000 sq ft (4,400 m2). It shares the grounds at 1600 Rockland Road with the Nemours Children's Hospital, Delaware, and both are owned by the Nemours Foundation.
Brandywine Creek State Park is a state park, located 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Wilmington, Delaware along the Brandywine Creek. Open year-round, it is 933 acres (378 ha) in area and much of the park was part of a Du Pont family estate and dairy farm before becoming a state park in 1965. It contains the first two nature preserves in Delaware. These nature preserves are Tulip Tree Woods and Freshwater Marsh. Flint Woods is a satellite area of the park and has become the park's third nature preserve. Flint Woods is home to species of rare song birds and an old-growth forest. The park's forests are part of the Northeastern coastal forests ecoregion.
Wilmington State Parks is a state park located in Wilmington, Delaware. Open year round, the park is approximately 345 acres (140 ha) of land mostly situated along the Brandywine Creek. The state park is made up of a group of smaller parks that are administratively managed as a single unit.
Bellevue State Park is a 328-acre (133 ha) Delaware state park in the suburbs of Wilmington in New Castle County, Delaware in the United States. The park is named for Bellevue Hall, the former mansion of William du Pont Jr. Many of the facilities at the park were built by du Pont. Bellevue State Park overlooks the Delaware River and is open for year-round recreation, daily, from 8 a.m. until sunset. The Mount Pleasant Methodist Episcopal Church and Parsonage is located in Bellevue State Park; it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1998. Cauffiel House is a historic home in the park near Stoney Creek.
Leland Castle is a building in New Rochelle, New York. It was constructed during the years in 1855 - 1859 in the Gothic Revival style, and was the country residence of Simeon Leland, a wealthy New York City hotel proprietor. Leland began to assemble an estate as early as 1848, and in 1855, began the erection of this palatial 60-room mansion. The home was designed by New York City architect William Thomas Beers. A north and south wing were added to the castle in 1899 and 1902 respectively.
The Delaware Historical Society began in 1864 as an effort to preserve documents from the Civil War. Since then, it has expanded into a statewide historical institution with several buildings, including Old Town Hall and the Delaware History Museum, in Wilmington and the historic Read House & Gardens in New Castle.
First State National Historical Park is a National Park Service unit which lies primarily in the state of Delaware but which extends partly into Pennsylvania in Chadds Ford. Initially created as First State National Monument by President Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act on March 25, 2013, the park was later redesignated as First State National Historical Park by Congress.
Belmont Castle was a neo-Gothic mansion near Grays in the English county of Essex. Built c. 1795 to designs by the little-known Thomas Jeffery, and surrounded by extensive pleasure grounds, it was the most prominent building in the parish, but was demolished in 1943 to make way for a chalk quarry. The castle and its occupants had played a significant role in the town's life for over a hundred years. The name has been adopted by a primary school - Belmont Castle Academy.
Gibraltar, located at 2505 Pennsylvania Avenue in Wilmington, Delaware, is a country estate home dating from c. 1844 that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It takes its name from the Rock of Gibraltar, alluding to the high rocky outcrop on which the house was built. It is located just inside Wilmington's city limits and originally stood at the center of a much larger estate which has over time been reduced to the present area of about a city block in size. The house was originally built by John Rodney Brincklé and inherited by his brother's wife and children, before being bought in 1909 by Hugh Rodney Sharp, who was linked to the Du Pont family through marriage and work. Sharp expanded and remodeled the house, as well as commissioning the pioneering female landscape designer Marian Cruger Coffin to lay out the gardens.
Brandywine Village was an early center of U.S. industrialization located on the Brandywine River in what is now Wilmington, Delaware.
Alapocas Run State Park is a state park, located in Wilmington, Delaware, United States, along the Brandywine Creek and its Alapocas Run tributary. Open year-round, it is 415 acres (168 ha) in area. Much of the state park was created from land originally preserved by William Poole Bancroft in the early 1900s to be used as open space parkland by the city of Wilmington as it expanded. The park also includes the Blue Ball Barn, a dairy barn built by Alfred I. du Pont as part of his Nemours estate in 1914. In addition to walking trails, athletic fields, and playgrounds for children, one of the park's primary features is a rock climbing wall. The rock climbing wall is part of an old quarry across from historic Bancroft Mills on the Brandywine, and the quarry is also used for school educational programs centered on earth sciences.
