On Oct. 17 and 18, as has been the

On Oct. 17 and 18, as has been the case every third weekend in October since 1956, the women of Bromfield Parish will sponsor the annual house tour and dried flower sale in Washington, Va.

Since Spring the ladies have been growing flowers for cutting and (irying, they have gone into field and forest to collect wild flowers and other colorful and interesting wild growth to be trimmed, dried and otherwise preserved to make hundreds of arrangements which will be on sale at the Parish Hall of Trinity Episcopal Church during this weekend.

These arrangements range in size from doll-house to banquet table. The popularity of this event has been attested to by the variety of license plates seen on cars in the Trinity parking lot representing states up and down the eastern seaboard and from as far as the mid-west.

The other attraction during the weekend is the tour of three Rappahannock County homes covering the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. This year two saw their beginnings in the 1700’s, one in early 1800. All have undergone extensive restoration, renovation and addition.

Beginning in Washington town, at the foot of Porter Street, is The Meadows, home of Edward and Martha Barton. This four story Federal house began as a log cabin built prior to 1749 by Francis Browning and now incorporated in the southern part of the north wing.

In 1781 William Porter put a second story on the cabin and built a two story addition to the north end. In 1810 he put up the four story Federal house we see today. The two, however, were not joined until the 1950’s. The latest addition is to the west side, built by the Bartons in 1990, consisting of a large, glass-walled living room and a modern, German designed kitchen. The latter appeared in the professional designers’ publication, “Kitchens 1992.”