page_title: Belfield (Philadelphia)
section_title: Gardens and Grounds
hierarchical_section_title: Belfield (Philadelphia) / Charles Willson Peale / Gardens and Grounds
caption_attribution_description: Ruins of a cave expanded by w:Charles Willson Peale on his w:Belfield Estate.
context_page_description: Belfield, also known as the Charles Willson Peale House, was the home of Charles Willson Peale from 1810 to 1826, and was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
  The Belfield Estate was a 104-acre area of land in the Logan section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, much of which is now a part of La Salle University’s campus.
context_section_description: Peale cultivated, and frequently used as inspiration, extensive gardens on the estate grounds.  One of the first structures Peale added to his garden was a "summer house", built in about 1813 by his son Franklin.  It was a hexagonal structure with six columns, and a bust of George Washington crowning its roof.  The Wister family later built a gazebo on this site that as of 2014 is in a ruined state. Northwest of the summer house was an obelisk at the end of a garden walk.  Peale painted four mottos that governed his life on the base of this obelisk, one on each side. It was Peale's wish to have been buried at the foot of this obelisk, yet it was not to be, as Peale sold Belfield a year before his death.  Though Peale was not buried at this location, the Wister family later buried their dog, a white German Spitz named 'Kaiser', there.  A reproduction of this obelisk was created by La Salle alumni in 2000.
  To the south of the obelisk, Peale erected another gazebo, in "Chinese [sic] taste, dedicated to meditation.  This summer house was simpler than the one built by his son, and only had a flat roof to provide shade, and four posts to hold it up, with seats around the inside.  On the same hillside as the Chinese gazebo was a pedestal onto which Peale inscribed ninety memorable events in American history, starting with the discovery of America, and ending with the American victory at New Orleans in 1815. Significantly, he left room to inscribe the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an American steamship.
  There were originally 7 natural pools and springs that existed within the massive property. Peale took advantage of these natural pools and utilized them to improve his massive garden. He hollowed out the source of the spring into an artificial cave, which he then lined with masonry. This spring fed a greenhouse with a glass ceiling. Unfortunately only two of the original seven pools remain today. The other five have either disappeared due to natural reasons or have been diverted to another location. There used to exist a spring within the "Summer House" until that was diverted along with two pools that existed by the kitchen that fed into a well and one that existed near the lower half of the stable. These have since disappeared and it is unknown exactly how the last two disappeared. To the southeast was a pool with a ten-foot fountain that was fed by pipes from the spring. Next to the pool was a garden shed onto which Peale painted a "gate" to disguise it. On the "gate" were symbols and figures representing Congress, America, Truth, Wisdom, Temperance, and Mars, the Roman God of war. The ruins of Peale's cave and greenhouse still stand.  The cave is now underneath the stump of a coffee tree, but the deteriorating masonry is still visible. The greenhouse's walls are to the west, and are mostly overgrown with brush and ivy while the location of Peale's pond has been paved over by a driveway.
  While the condition of the gardens and greenhouses may have deteriorated during the unforgiving embrace of time, they once used to be magnificent, with numerous flora of all kinds scattered all throughout the greenhouses and on the grounds. The flora included a fig tree to the south side of the small gardener's cottage along with a box tree only a couple of yards away. This tree was replaced several times during the history of Belfield. There were numerous transplanted trees that are scattered throughout the land but throughout all the years, only one tree can be described as the strongest and longest lasting. This is the old hickory tree that was and still is standing near the greenhouses.
caption: The ruins of Peale's cave in 2010.
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