Photo credit:
Elizabeth Beckley, 08/25/2014
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Worsell Manor
Inventory No.:
CE-58
Date Listed:
8/31/2023
Location:
555 Worsell Manor Road, Warwick, Cecil County
Category:
Building
Period/Date of Construction:
c.1760 - principal dwelling; c. 1930 - agricultural outbuildings
Boundary Description:
The nominated property comprises the remnant of the acreage historically associated with the resource, and encompasses all the contributing resources within their historic setting. The current property boundaries are recorded in the Cecil County Land Records under two separate parcels with the Deed information being: Book 3039 Page 230 – 233 Book 3573 Page 213 - 218. See USGS map for precise boundary.
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Description:
Worsell Manor, located near the end of a rural country road and set on a flat, open site 2.5 miles northwest of Warwick in Cecil County, Maryland, is a complex that consists of a mid-Georgian brick manor house and several nineteenth- and twentieth-century barns and outbuildings. The latter includes a timber frame barn and granary, two concrete silos, a concrete block dairy, and a pole shed. The house, constructed ca. 1760-1780, is a 2.5-story, five-bay by two-bay structure built upon a rubble stone foundation and laid in Flemish bond with random glazed headers. It has a gable roof with an east-west ridge and interior brick chimneys placed on the north and south gable ends. A water table runs across each elevation and there is a belt course on the east and west elevations of the dwelling. On the north elevation is a 2.5-story addition that is three bays by two bays, constructed of brick laid in common bond. Worsell Manor retains much original fabric and is a fine example of mid-Georgian vernacular architecture in Cecil County and the upper Eastern Shore.
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Significance:
Worsell Manor was part of the Maryland proprietary system and originated as a 1,000 acre land grant from Lord Baltimore to Peter Sayer in 1683. Though the property retains only fifty of its original thousand acres, the landscape maintains its rural character and pristine agricultural setting. The Worsell Manor dwelling is a highly significant historic building for its regional architectural style and original condition, representative of the mid-Georgian period in the Tidewater. The house could have been built by James Paul Heath before his death in the 1740s but was most likely erected in the 1750s by Daniel Charles Heath, son of wealthy merchant, land speculator, and early Catholic, James Paul Heath. It is an important example of an elite, early planter’s dwelling house and plantation in the region that dates to the mid-eighteenth century. Worsell Manor is one of the few remaining examples of architecture from this period in Cecil County, and reflects the unique plantation culture of the eighteenth century as well as the evolution of agriculture in the region into the twentieth century.
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