Historic Rugby
Rugby, Tennessee
Award Type: Trustee Emeritus Award for Excellence in the Stewardship of Historic Sites
For more than four decades, the nonprofit preservation group Historic Rugby has worked—often against great odds and with scant resources—to restore, preserve and interpret the cultural and natural history of a unique Victorian village. Founded in 1880 by Thomas Hughes, a British writer and social reformer, Rugby was envisioned as a class-free, agrarian community located on the sparsely settled and rugged Cumberland Plateau. During the early 1880s, Rugby flourished, attracting widespread attention on two continents and hundreds of hopeful settlers from both Great Britain and other parts of America. But a typhoid epidemic, financial troubles, land title problems and unusually severe winters gradually brought about the Utopian community's decline, and by 1900, only 125 people lived in this once-thriving village.
For decades, descendants of the town's original colonists carefully guarded Rugby's public buildings, official records, river gorge trails and cemetery, until 1966 when Brian Stagg, a 16-year-old student from a neighboring community, founded a group dedicated to the preservation of Rugby. Stagg served as executive director of the Rugby Restoration Association, now Historic Rugby, until his untimely death in 1976; his sister, Barbara Stagg, and her husband, John Gilliat, a descendant of original Rugby colonists, have led the organization since.
To date, Historic Rugby has authentically restored 10 original buildings, historically reconstructed three more, developed an architecturally compatible visitor center, theatre and restaurant, and conserved nearly 800 acres of surrounding woodland. The group is also shepherding a new development of Victorian homes being built by modern-day "colonists" at Beacon Hill, an area designated on the 1880 town plan.
"It's entirely fitting that the National Trust's Award for Excellence in the Stewardship of Historic Sites is this year presented to Historic Rugby because it would be difficult to find finer stewards than the citizens of Rugby, Tenn. and their supporters" said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "Because of Historic Rugby, a remarkable Victorian village survives, and the long-ago dreams of Thomas Hughes and the more recent vision of Brian Stagg are being realized."
For more than four decades, the nonprofit preservation group Historic Rugby has worked—often against great odds and with scant resources—to restore, preserve and interpret the cultural and natural history of a unique Victorian village. Founded in 1880 by Thomas Hughes, a British writer and social reformer, Rugby was envisioned as a class-free, agrarian community located on the sparsely settled and rugged Cumberland Plateau. During the early 1880s, Rugby flourished, attracting widespread attention on two continents and hundreds of hopeful settlers from both Great Britain and other parts of America. But a typhoid epidemic, financial troubles, land title problems and unusually severe winters gradually brought about the Utopian community's decline, and by 1900, only 125 people lived in this once-thriving village.
For decades, descendants of the town's original colonists carefully guarded Rugby's public buildings, official records, river gorge trails and cemetery, until 1966 when Brian Stagg, a 16-year-old student from a neighboring community, founded a group dedicated to the preservation of Rugby. Stagg served as executive director of the Rugby Restoration Association, now Historic Rugby, until his untimely death in 1976; his sister, Barbara Stagg, and her husband, John Gilliat, a descendant of original Rugby colonists, have led the organization since.
To date, Historic Rugby has authentically restored 10 original buildings, historically reconstructed three more, developed an architecturally compatible visitor center, theatre and restaurant, and conserved nearly 800 acres of surrounding woodland. The group is also shepherding a new development of Victorian homes being built by modern-day "colonists" at Beacon Hill, an area designated on the 1880 town plan.
"It's entirely fitting that the National Trust's Award for Excellence in the Stewardship of Historic Sites is this year presented to Historic Rugby because it would be difficult to find finer stewards than the citizens of Rugby, Tenn. and their supporters" said Richard Moe, president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. "Because of Historic Rugby, a remarkable Victorian village survives, and the long-ago dreams of Thomas Hughes and the more recent vision of Brian Stagg are being realized.
