Blue Ridge Country January/February 2021 - 17
OUR BLUE RIDGE TOWNS
FACING PAGE: Rugby founder Thomas Hughes.
LEFT: The Thomas Hughes Library is home to many first
edition and autographed Victorian books.
BELOW, FROM TOP: The Thomas Hughes Library today,
virtually unchanged over 140 years; The Christ Church
Episcopal has been in continuous use since it opened in 1887;
Thomas Hughes' planned retirement home, Kingstone Lisle.
BELOW RIGHT: The Rugby School is now a museum.
his words, " a positive, active restoration, rather than a
stand-still preservation or a museum. " The 125,000-acre
Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area was
established in 1974, protecting Rugby from commercial
development. In the mid-1980s, Beacon Hill, a section of
the original Rugby plat, was developed with strict adherence to Victorian architecture, right down to paint colors
and roof slope. (Enviably, all utilities are underground.)
Which brings us to today. What will you see when you
go to Rugby?
Among the 20 original structures are these:
* The 1882 Thomas Hughes Library, which holds one
of the finest collections of Victorian literature in America,
many of them first editions, as well as many of the original Rugby records. The library appears as it did in 1882-
and is thought to be the oldest public lending library in
the South.
* The 1887 Christ Church Episcopal, with hand-hewn
beams, original hanging lamps and stained glass, and an
1849 rosewood reed organ, one of the oldest in the United States.
* Kingstone Lisle, an English Rural Style cottage to
which Hughes planned to retire, furnished with original
Hughes family belongings.
* The 1907 Rugby Schoolhouse, used by villagers as
an all-grade school until the mid-1950s. The first floor is
now a museum.
Depending on the season, you might see people dancing around a maypole, or competing at Irish road bowling. You might listen to costumed storytellers spinning
ghost tales. (Rugby, like most historic towns, claims to
be haunted.)
Or you might get the chance to talk to Jordan
Hughett, Historic Rugby's Development Associate and
enthusiastic Rugby supporter. The recent college graduate (who, like Brian Stagg a half-century earlier, grew
up a stone's throw from Rugby) is clear on one thing:
" Rugby was not a failure. "
" Rugby adapted, " he says. " Yes, a number of the original settlers went other places...but they succeeded where
they went. They did exactly what Hughes wanted them
to do: They came to Rugby, and they found their way. "
Hughett says that several Rugby homeowners have
made what was a second home into their primary residence, having discovered that telecommuting from Rugby is quite doable.
If not, with its preserved wild surroundings, downright Utopian.
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2021
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Blue Ridge Country January/February 2021
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Blue Ridge Country January/February 2021
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