[MassHistPres] RFP--Historic Structures Reports--Hingham, MA

[HHS Director]

INTRODUCTION

 

The Hingham Historical Society has received grant funding to hire a
qualified Architectural consultant to develop a set of Historic Structures
Reports for its two historic buildings, the Old Derby Academy, and the Old
Ordinary House Museum. Both buildings are situated in National Historic
Districts. The primary requirement for the project is a documentary,
historical and structural assessment of the buildings by a firm highly
qualified and experienced in the inspection, research, and analysis of New
England's historic architecture of the colonial and Federal eras. 

 

 


BACKGROUND


 

The Hingham Historical Society, founded in 1914, is a non-profit corporation
dedicated to collecting, preserving, and interpreting the history of
Hingham, Massachusetts. As a part of its mission, the Historical Society
maintains and operates two historic buildings, the Old Derby Academy and the
Old Ordinary House Museum. They are the only two historic buildings in
Hingham open to the public expressly for the purpose of interpreting and
educating our citizenry about Hingham's architectural heritage.

 

Old Derby

The Old Derby Academy was built in 1818 to house the Derby School, a
co-educational day school originally founded in 1784 by Madame Sara Derby.
Styled in a Federal idiom, the building is situated in a hillside at head of
Hingham's historic Main Street. Old Derby contains 3 floors, and currently
hosts the Hingham Historical Society's business office and gift shop on the
first floor. The second floor is used for function rentals and Society
events, while the 3rd floor houses the institution's historic Archives. The
second floor is pierced with large arched windows on 3 sides, with a large
Palladian window that faces Main Street. Though children shared classrooms,
separate entrances for boys and girls were built into the back of the
building. Those entrances today function as handicapped access, and access
to the garden terrace behind the building.

 

For the first few decades of its existence Old Derby was the largest indoor
meeting space in Hingham, and thus was the venue for town meetings,
lectures, and other entertainments in addition to serving as a school. After
the construction of Loring Hall across the street, Derby Academy gradually
ceased to host town events and was used primarily as a school for the next
100-odd years until Derby Academy moved its operations to its new quarters
on Burditt Avenue in 1966. At that point, the building was threatened with
destruction until it was purchased by the Historical Society, which has used
it as a headquarters ever since.

 

 

Old Ordinary

The Old Ordinary was built in the late 1680s as a residence for Thomas
Andrews, Jr. The original structure was a fairly typical one-over-one First
Period house with first and second-story jetties at the southwestern gable
end, opposite the chimney. The house has seen many enlargements and
alterations over the years. In the 1740s, owner Francis Barker added a
one-over-one addition to the southwestern end of the house, thus masking
some of its original late medieval appearance. To accommodate a growing
family and business, Barker added another extension to the entire length of
the northwestern side of the house in the 1760s, incorporating a new kitchen
and tap room. The 19th century saw several more adjustments, including the
updating of the original lower floor room, the addition of a small library,
the addition of dormers to the original roof, plus the addition, and
subsequent removal, of carriage house and ballroom onto the 1760s addition.
None of the home's original outbuildings remain.

 

The Old Ordinary was privately owned until 1922 when Wilmon Brewer donated
it to the fledgling Hingham Historical Society for use as a museum and
headquarters. In 1931, the Society restored portions of the house, and added
a fireproof vault the Old Ordinary's northeastern end. To this was added a
second floor exhibition space in 1951. There are some records of the changes
to the house over the years, but many of them are anecdotal and the existing
documentation is uneven. Today, the Historical Society uses the Old Ordinary
as a museum to display and store its collection of historic Hingham
artifacts. The Society operates tours five days a week in the summer months
at the Old Ordinary, and hosts various educational events at the site
throughout the fall.

 

The Hingham Historical Society is a growing organization, having recently
professionalized its operations and reorganized its board structure. A
recent membership drive brought in over 100 new members, and volunteerism
has increased significantly over the past two years. Within the next year
the society hopes to begin a master planning phase that will accomplish
several strategic and infrastructural goals by the 2014, when the Society
celebrates its 100th birthday. While both buildings serve necessary
functions for the Society in its operations, the Society also wishes to
continue its mission of preserving and interpreting Old Derby and the Old
Ordinary for their historic value. For this reason the Board of Directors
deemed it necessary to undertake an extensive evaluation of its two
buildings in order to make the most well-informed decisions about how to
balance the necessary day to day activities in each structure with their
long term preservation and interpretive value. The Society will use the
Historic Structure Reports for Old Derby and Old Ordinary as foundation
documents for this long-term planning phase.

 

For a complete version of the RFP, see the Hingham Historical Website,
www.hinghamhistorical.org

 

 

 

Suzanne Buchanan

Hingham Historical Society

P.O. Box 434 Hingham, MA 02043

781-749-7721

www.hinghamhistorical.org

 

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