Pilgrimage weekend April 8-10


Thursday, March 24, 2011
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Pilgrimage weekend April 8-10

The 73rd Pilgrimage “Festival of Art and Architecture” will take place in historic Holly Springs April 8-10.

Set in the Antebellum Capitol of the Mid-South, the tour features selected antebellum homes hosted by costumed guides, local storytellers, organ recitals in the town’s historic churches, horse-drawn carriage rides, Civil War re-enactors, luncheons, a character-guided cemetery tour, arts and crafts and a Southern supper in the antebellum Montrose mansion.

Guests are invited to enjoy an authentic, pre-Civil War experience. Homes on tour this year include the palatial Walter Place Estates, built by Harvey W. Walter in 1858–59 and combining Gothic and classic Greek Revival styles, making it architecturally unique in the South. In December 1862 Gen. and Mrs. Ulysses S. Grant lived here during the Union encampment in Holly Springs during the Civil War. The property also includes nearby c. 1830s raised-basement “cottages” known as Featherston and Polk, which feature matching gabled porches to both houses. The adjacent park was built beginning in 2005 and features a waterfall 150 feet long leading to the small lake at the center. A winding boardwalk twists and turns around the 400-year-old bald cypress, leading up to the recently constructed “temple of love” directly behind Walter Place.

Also included on the tour are the Audubon-Finley Place (1856), the Church of the Yellow Fever Martyrs (1841), Sabbath School Church (1837), First Presbyterian Church (1860), Christ Episcopal Church (1858), First United Methodist Church (1849), Montrose (1858), the Marshall County Historical Museum and the Ida B. Wells-Barnett Museum.

Friday evening guests will enjoy “Sunset on Salem,” which features carriage tours along the road once referred to as “Silk Stocking Row,” where costumed guides regale stories of the town’s history in front of the street’s grand Southern mansions. Afterwards, guests are invited to attend the first-ever “Screen on the Green” on the stately grounds of Montrose for a big-screen viewing of “Cookie’s Fortune,” filmed in Holly Springs in 1999. Saturday will feature the annual 5K, “Hoopskirts on the Highway,” the Plant it Pink luncheon at Montrose to benefit the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation, as well as “A Walk Through Time,” a guided tour through historic Hill Crest Cemetery. That evening, the Holly Springs Garden Club will host Montrose Under the Moonlight, a dinner dance featuring a Southern supper under the stars at one of the town’s finest antebellum homes with tunes by renowned band The Venus Mission. Sunday’s guests are invited to brunch on the grounds of Montrose to be entertained by local townspeople for a hilarious period skit, “Fairest Flower of the South.”

For tickets to this year’s festivities, visitors should call Mrs. William York at (662) 252-2365 or Mrs. Rod Childers at (901) 230-3576.

The Holly Springs Pilgrimage is sponsored by the Holly Springs Garden Club. Visit www.visithollysprings.org for more information.

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