HISTORY PHOTOS DOCUMENTS MAPS OTHER STUFF

 

Banjotown house restoration 2007-11
Interior & Exterior changes:

When the current house owner's great grandfather's (x6) brother, Philip Livingston, signed the Declaration of Independence the adjacent area was still vacant farm land and woods assigned to Richard Davies by William Penn. This specific house was built in 1885-6, shortly after a sub-division of what was then Sarah Jane Matlack's 12-acre plot and Banjo Town subsequently emerged as a flourishing community. The original house was extended haphazardly in the 1900s with a series of rough additions including a cobbler's shop (which later became a bathroom) in an enclosed porch at the rear.

The old footage in the exterior video here mixes the remains of the old 19th century layout with the ongoing 21st century refurbishment. Now almost completely restored (since these videos) the new design is basically indistinguishable from the old at the front and sides, while the back reflects and complements the original structure, approximately covering the same footprint established in its early days.

 

 

Lecture: Early Radnor – Photos & Stories
by Phil Graham:shop


The new, permanent photo display in Radnor Memorial Library’s Winsor Room shows just a few of the 20,000 or so local images preserved by Radnor Historical Society and its partners. In 2019 RML Board Members selected around 30 of their personal favorites which would best represent the history and development of Radnor Township. Former RHS director Phil Graham then went to work restoring them from their faded and damaged state, and in the process meticulously enhanced certain areas of some where hidden detail could be coaxed from the shadows. Mindful of the increasingly obscure


history behind each he went back to early references to see if he could find out how some of the photos came about, why they were so meticulously taken, what they represented, and whether anything of the scene is recognizable today. In the process he collated the story behind each and unearthed a variety of fascinating anecdotes that explain their historical significance. This lecture briefly illustrates the process, magnifying the clues often hidden in plain sight, and relates some of those stories in a way that reminds us how much Radnor has changed in the last 150 years.


MUSIC
Site by Phil Graham