TURNER-STRUDWICK HOUSE

The Turner-Strudwick House is a two-story, deck-on-hip-roofed frame house. It is three bays wide and double pile with gables centered on the façade and side elevations. It has plain weatherboards, two-over-two wood-sash windows, and a standing-seam metal roof with two interior corbelled brick chimneys. The double- leaf entrance has a three-light transom and is sheltered by a near-full-width, hip-roofed porch supported by slender classical posts. The entrance is flanked by projecting, three-sided bay windows with wood panels above and below the windows. The windows have beaded surrounds and shutters and there are quatrefoil vents in the gables. There is a one-story, hip-roofed porch on the right (south) gable end supported by the same slender classical posts as the main porch. A one-story rear (east) ell has a low-pitched gable roof, interior brick flue, and full-length, hip-roofed porch supported by plain posts on its south side. A hip-roofed porch, enclosed at the south end, extends across the rest of the rear façade of the main block of the house.

County tax records date the building to 1833 and the house, which appeared on the John L. Bailey Map of 1839, originally occupied a five-acre lot surrounded by Churton, Orange, and Union streets. It was the home of Josiah Turner, Sr., a tinner, and his family. The family went bankrupt in 1872 and the estate was sold at auction. In 1887, it became the property of Edmund Strudwick, a businessman from Norfolk, Virginia. Mr. Strudwick bought the house for his mother and sisters, who lived in the house. Strudwick was responsible for renovating and enlarging the house, apparently adding the roof gables, front bay windows, and replacement sash which give the simple house a Victorian appearance. In 1911, the block was divided into smaller lots for the J.A. Hogan subdivision and the adjacent acreage has been developed with other houses. A small office building, part of the original acreage, is now part of the lot at 408 North Churton Street.

From Gardens of Old Hillsborough, 1971 (I believe this refers to this house):

The William Strudwick house, located on the corner of Churton and East Union Streets, has always been surrounded by informal gardens. As was usual, seventy-five or a hundred years ago, there were flower gardens on each side of the front walk. These gardens held many varieties of old roses. Other flower beds held iris, peonies, dahlias, blue bells, Jacob's Ladder (a species of gladiolus), as well as a variety of flowering shrubs. A grape arbor on the north side occupied a large area. Mr. and Mrs. Brandon Lloyd, the present owners, are enthusiastic gardeners and maintain a beautiful planting of iris and lilies.