Calvert's parlour? There was no one on site to ask but based on maps on the Colony of Avalon website, I think it is.One thing the settlers who started the Colony of Avalon didn't have to bring with them from England was stone for building purposes. There's an abundance of it anywhere on the island of Newfoundland. A recreative painting of the waterfront shows a massive stone warehouse made of locally procured rocks.
Captain Wynne wrote very favourably of local conditions to Calvert in 1622. He described woods and plains in the thousands of acres well furnished with ponds, rivers, fish and caribou. Oats, wheat, barley and beans were planted and doing well as were vegetables growing in the kitchen garden. They had a meadow of 3 acres from which they harvested hay to feed the cattle.
The climate in the summertime was warm and winter lasted from mid-January to the end of March.
Today the winter starts usually well before the middle of January and summers are short. While the land does support agriculture, most people I think would agree with me in saying that the Ferryland and surroundings is not a choice area for farming.
Maybe 1622 was an unusual year or maybe he was seeing the world through rose coloured glasses. Or, maybe things weren't all that great in England at the time. I would have trouble comparing our weather as favourable to the climate of England. Certainly, in England they are able to football all year round but not here. The weather is a constant source of conversation and most involves complaining about it. I think its what you make of it and it doesn't hurt to see the world through rose coloured glasses, just like the colonists of Avalon almost 400 years ago.
Tony :-)
Newfoundland is affectionately known as "The Rock". It comes by this name honestly.
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