Talk:Wren Building

Architecture Mid‑importance

	Architecture portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Architecture, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Architecture on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ArchitectureWikipedia:WikiProject ArchitectureTemplate:WikiProject ArchitectureArchitecture articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Virginia C‑class High‑importance

	Virginia portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Virginia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of the U.S. state of Virginia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.VirginiaWikipedia:WikiProject VirginiaTemplate:WikiProject VirginiaVirginia articles
C	This article has been given a rating which conflicts with the project-independent quality rating in the banner shell. Please resolve this conflict if possible.
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

National Register of Historic Places High‑importance

	National Register of Historic Places portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject National Register of Historic Places, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of U.S. historic sites listed on the National Register of Historic Places on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.National Register of Historic PlacesWikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic PlacesTemplate:WikiProject National Register of Historic PlacesNational Register of Historic Places articles
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

Please cite "oldest in continuous use" claim, etc.[edit]

William & Mary (doubtless over the objections of its history department, which cares about accuracy) likes to claim (1) that "The Wren Building is the oldest continually used academic building in the U.S." and (2) "According to tradition, the building was designed by famous British architect Christopher Wren" (both statements removed from this page). Neither statement is true.

(1) The Wren was not used during the early 1880s, when W&M closed its doors and ceased to exist as a private college, and it was not used during the Civil War, when (as this article notes) it was used by the CSA. Buildings at other colleges, notably Harvard, continued in use during those periods. Therefore the Wren is not the oldest continually used academic building.

(2) Although it might be technically true that legend attributes the building to Wren, no serious scholar does so, and placing the legend at the top of the article gives it far too much prominence, implying that it has some basis in fact. It does not, and no one who has studied the history of the building (which was not even named for Wren until the 1920s) believes that it does. A single unreliable writer in the eighteenth century once said that the inspiration for the precursor to the Wren (which burned well before his time) was "modelled by" Wren; that was not the building now standing or even the inspiration for the building now standing, i.e. the one built around 1705.

--Shuffl 21:58, 24 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure what "history department" is being addressed here, but the "oldest continually used" statement is generally accepted by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, which overlaps significantly with the History Department at W&M. While classes abated during the Civil War, President Benjamin Ewell continued to work and study in the building with any available faculty. Advanced study continued despite the absence of students in the lower studies. The fact remains that the Wren Building was built in the 1600s as a school and continues in this facility today. So the claim is fair and reasonable.

--mwcob 10:45, 25 April 2007

But the "building" has been gutted by fire more than once, and then rebuilt. While it appears that the current structure does incorporate parts of the original walls, it is certainly not the original structure. It would be more accurate to describe it as a reproduction that incorporates portions of the original structure. Local pride should not take precedence over historical accuracy. Davidiank (talk) 17:32, 15 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

User:mwcob's claim concerning Benjamin Ewell working in the building during the Civil War is false - following Virginia's secession, he joined the Confederate Army and spent the Peninsular Campaign directing the construction of fortifications at some distance from the town of Williamsburg, while the building was converted into a barracks and military hospital. In 1862, Williamsburg was captured by the US Army and the building was deliberately set on fire so that it couldn't be used by Confederate snipers. In any case, Ewell had been promoted to the staff of General Joseph Johnston and spent the rest of the war (1862 to 1865) far away from Williamsburg. While I suppose it's possible that other faculty (though the faculty was very small during this period and it's likely that Ewell wasn't the only one to become a Confederate officer), it's very unlikely that they would have been able to work in a fire-gutted ruin under military occupation. It's plausible that Ewell, at least, continued to work there after the college closed in 1881 (there's no evidence that any of the other professors remained in Williamsburg during this period and it reopened with an entirely new faculty), but the Civil War interruption is enough to make the claim of "continuous use" overblown. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.162.254.142 (talk) 20:45, 4 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Wren Building. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090213002246/http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=707&ResourceType=Building to http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=707&ResourceType=Building

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 15:04, 8 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]