Where George Washington’s Ancestors Slept : The first President never visited England, but his English roots run deep.

George Washington has been aptly described as the last Englishman and the first American. Washington’s English roots were deeper than even he realized or cared about; he always professed a disdain for genealogy. But despite Gen. Washington’s lack of interest in his forebears, a number of well-documented Washington family sites have been preserved in widely scattered parts of England, ranging from the Borders region to the Midlands to quaint towns near the English Channel in Essex County.

Although George never visited England, there are Washingtons in both England and America, living links between the two countries.

American travelers with an interest in the English heritage of our first President can put together a self-guided tour of Washington Country. All they need is a good British road atlas and rental car; several of the sites are beyond the reach of public transportation.

The Washington chronology begins in the north of England at Washington Old Hall, the oldest extant building associated with George Washington’s direct descendants. About 10 miles southeast of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, near the A1 highway, this small manor house has been a National Trust property open to the public since 1957.

The Washington family lineage can be traced back in an unbroken line to the 12th Century. Originally known as the de Hertburn family of the Borders region, the family emerges out of the fog of the early Middle Ages as de Wessyngton (or de Washington). In an age before surnames, they took the name of their adopted home, the town of Washington in the former County Durham, now part of County Tyne and Wear.

The family homestead, occupied in about 1180, is in the old village section of Washington New Town, a planned community that spreads into the industrial and mining regions between the Tyne and Wear rivers. The small, two-story sandstone manor house, set back from a tree-lined road on several acres, dates mostly from the 17th Century, but the house’s foundation, west wall and parts of the kitchen date to its medieval period.

Visitors enter the house through a ground-floor lobby, passing a wax bust and some pictures of George Washington, before entering the Great Hall, a communal dining area furnished mostly with 17th-Century antiques. On the north wall is a John Singleton Copley oil painting of Gen. Washington mounted on a white horse, painted during the 1770s. Two fieldstone arches from the original house separate the Great Hall from the kitchen, with its large open fireplace used for cooking. On the other end of the ground floor is a large family room, the “withdrawing room.”

The second-floor bedroom, normally closed because that floor is used as a community center, displays a colored print of Mt. Vernon presented on May 6, 1977, by President Jimmy Carter to commemorate his visit and that of British Prime Minister James Callaghan to Washington Old Hall. .

Behind the manor house are attractive gardens, a tribute to Anglo-American relations funded by prominent citizens on both sides of the Atlantic, including Walter Annenberg, former U.S. ambassador to Great Britain.

During the five generations that Washington’s direct ancestors lived here, they were linked politically and economically with the powerful Bishops of Durham, who held secular and religious authority in the region. Two more Williams and a Walter lived at Old Hall before William III’s son, Robert, married into the wealthy Strickland family and moved to Warton in Lancashire about 1300.

John Washington was the last direct ancestor to live in Lancashire, and it was through his marriage to Margaret Kitson that George Washington was a distant relative of Winston Churchill. John’s son, Lawrence, moved to Northamptonshire about 1530 to work for fellow Lancashireman Sir William Parr, who had large land holdings in both counties. Lawrence soon grew prosperous in the wool business and became mayor of Northampton in 1532. By 1539, he owned the property of Sulgrave Manor, and completed construction of the house about 1560.

Sulgrave Manor is a stately old limestone farmhouse--as the site leaflet calls it, “a modest manor house and garden of the time of Shakespeare.” The manor’s spacious grounds and gardens are open for strolling, although the house can only be visited by guided tour. While waiting for tour groups to form, visitors may watch a short film about the Washington family in England, screened in an old brew house that now serves as a visitor center. The Great Hall, with its open oak I-beam ceiling and large Tudor fireplace, is the sparsely furnished introduction to the manor house. Above the fireplace hangs the most valuable object in the manor, an original oil painting of George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, the well-known late-18th- and early-19th-Century American portrait painter. The Great Hall, the Deeds and Porch rooms, second-floor bedrooms and several other rooms are from the original Lawrence Washington manor house. The large kitchen and the north and west wings were added at later dates.

The Deeds and Porch rooms serve as small museums displaying George Washington memorabilia, including saddle bags, a velvet coat, an oak liquor cabinet and strands of his hair. The house is furnished with authentic Queen Anne and Tudor furniture, including four-poster beds, a mahogany chair once owned by George Washington and handsome oak tables.

An American flag, flying incongruously from a flagpole in front of the manor, serves as a symbol of the special relationship between Great Britain and the United States.

A short distance from the manor, in the rural village of Sulgrave, is the 14th-Century parish church where Lawrence Washington, his wife and their eldest son, Robert, are buried. Robert inherited Sulgrave Manor and its 1,250 acres in 1584. In 1601, he transferred the property to his own eldest son, also Lawrence, who in turn sold the mansion in 1610 to cousins, apparently to offset financial problems.

About 24 miles from Sulgrave is the hamlet of Little Brington, where Lawrence lived from about 1610 to 1613. His small stone house, about 50 yards from the present-day grocery store, has a dedication stone on the facade inscribed “1606,” which carries this passage: “The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away, Blessed be the Name of the Lord.” This is probably a lament for Lawrence’s son, Gregory, who died in 1606.

The stone house had two wings added over the years and has been turned into a two-family dwelling. It is currently occupied and not open to the public.

Lawrence died in 1616 and is buried in a large, 800-year-old fieldstone parish church known as Saint Mary the Virgin, in Great Brington, a couple of miles from Little Brington on country lanes. The church sits serenely on a small hillside at the end of the town’s main street. Inside the church, the Washington family pew--with its wooden carved crests of two stripes and three stars--is a dramatic reminder of the links across time between the Washingtons of Mt Vernon, Va., and the Washingtons of the historic past in Northamptonshire.

The Lawrence buried at Great Brington had a son, also named Lawrence, who studied for the ministry at Brasenose College, Oxford University. In 1633, Lawrence was appointed rector to the wealthy, church-owned lands of Purleigh, not far from the English Channel in Essex County. He served at All Saints Church, a small stone church dating from about 1220. Today it is open only for Sunday services. The church is handsome in a dowdy sort of way, but there are no special reminders that the great-great-grandfather of America’s first President once served here.

The Washington family fortune declined during the English civil war, when Oliver Cromwell’s parliamentary and Puritan forces triumphed over the Royalists. Lawrence, a staunch Royalist, lost his church and was sent to the poor parish of Little Braxted, also in Essex County. He died almost penniless and is buried in the churchyard at All Saints Church in nearby Maldon. The church, with its triangular bell tower, the only one like it in England, has a stained-glass window donated to it by the people of Malden, Mass., in 1928, commemorating Lawrence Washington.

Lawrence’s son, John, after he came of age, became a mate and partner on the ketch Sea Horse, sailing from London to Virginia in the tobacco trade. On a voyage in 1657, the ship foundered shortly after it left Mattox Creek, Va. John stayed with the Nathaniel Pope family while the ketch was refloated, and when the ship set sail again, he decided to stay in Virginia, where in 1658 he married Anne Pope, daughter of Nathaniel, and received a 700-acre farm in Mattox Creek, Westmoreland County, as a wedding present.

The ties with England weren’t broken yet, however. George Washington’s father, Augustine, was educated in England at the Appleby School in Lancashire. And close relatives, the Morris Washingtons of New York City, left for England permanently in 1783, with the Loyalist exodus from the victorious 13 colonies.

GUIDEBOOK

Washington’s England

Washington Old Hall

From London, take the M1 motorway to Leeds, then the A1 highway to Houghton le Spring, north of Durham. Turn off onto A182 and follow the signs to District 4, Washington Village. It’s about 225 miles from London.

Washington Old Hall is open from Good Friday (this year, April 17) through October, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Closed Fridays, except Good Friday. Open to groups other times by advance arrangements. Admission: about $3. From U.S. telephones: 011-44-91-416-6879.

Sulgrave Manor

From London, take M40 north to the Banbury exit; follow A422 two miles toward Brackley; then take secondary Road B4525 toward Northampton. Sulgrave is about nine miles from M40 and about 75 miles northwest of London. From Washington-Newcastle, take A69 west to Corbridge, A68 north to B6318, then west to Carlisle, passing Hadrian’s Wall and ruins of the Roman forts.

Sulgrave Manor is open 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. daily, April 1 to Sept. 30; and 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. daily, March 1-31 and Oct. 1-Dec. 31. Closed in January; open by appointment only in February. Admission: about $5. Telephone 011-29-576-205.

Little Brington House

From Sulgrave, take B4525 toward Northampton. In New Duston, on the outskirts of Northampton city, turn left just before A425 on a country road. Signs will direct you to Little Brington, about 24 miles from Sulgrave. This is an occupied two-family residence, not open to the public.

Great Brington Church

From Sulgrave, same as above, but continue through Little Brington on country roads. It’s about two miles to Great Brington. The church is at the end of the main street and is open daily during normal business hours.

All Saints Church, Maldon

From London, take M25 east to A12, toward Chelmsford, then A414 to Maldon’s main road. The church is in the center of town on the left and is open daily during normal business hours.

Purleigh Church

Continue on Maldon’s main street and follow signs on the country road five miles to Purleigh. Park by the pub in town and walk up a slight embankment to the church. Open Sundays only.

For more information: Contact the British Tourist Authority, 350 S. Figueroa St., Suite 450, Los Angeles 90071, (213) 628-3525.