Art and Architectural Walking Tours -- New Hope, PA

New Hope Mills
Phillips Mill
Ney Alley
Riegelsville Bridge
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William Penn retained more than 10 percent of Bucks County's land for himself. 

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Main and Ferry Street, 
New Hope, PA

Best known as a gristmill, the New Hope Mills owned by Benjamin Parry was also a working sawmill and lumber factory. First established as flaxseed oil, grist, and saw mills under Parry, the mill operations were destroyed by fire in 1790. Parry rebuilt only the grist and saw mills under the name New Hope Mills and from that prominent structure, New Hope got its name. Benjamin Parry's home constructed in 1784 (now the Parry Mansion) is located on Main Street. Parry resided there until his death in 1839.

Like New Hope, the area known as Phillips Mill was also named for a grist mill that was built there in the 18th century. Specifically built in 1756 by Aaron Phillips and operated by family members until 1894, Phillips Mill was sold to Dr. George Marshall in the same year.

Dr. Marshall sold the miller's house adjacent to Phillips Mill to William Langston Lathrop, progenitor of the Pennsylvania Impressionist School of painting. In 1929, Phillips Mill was purchased from Dr. Marshall and it opened remains an important site for events celebrating the visual and performing arts including the famous Phillips Mill annual art exhibition. 

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Phillips Mill, site of the annual 
Phillips Mill Art Exhibition

The annual Phillips Mill Art Exhibition had been host to years of exhibitions featuring the New Hope School of Impressionism including the work of Daniel Garber, Edward Redfield, and Walter Schofield among others.

In 1930, instead of continuing to compete at Phillips Mill with conservative, Impressionist-favored juries, the New Hope Modernists held their own independent exhibition selecting their own work for display.

While Phillips Mill is known as a major art establishment and maintained the name of its first owner, Aaron Phillips, Ney Alley was another historic art site and appropriately named for a New Hope Modernist who lived and worked on the spot.

While the canal and the towpath were attractive to many, the New Hope artists truly made it their own. The towpath was the site of many artists and their easels as they captured landscape compositions en plein aire (painting outdoors) throughout the seasons. The entrance to Ney Alley historically served as a path for artists and a space for artists' studios and galleries. This was also a major point of entry for generations of 19th and 20th century artists to consider the Canal as subject matter and paint en plein aire. 

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Ney Alley, New Hope, PA

This bridge, near Riegelsville, which spans the Delaware River was designed by John and Washington A. Roebling, engineers of the famed Brooklyn Bridge (1883).  Like the architectural marvel that spans the East River, this bridge demonstrates the support system and gothic revival structural forms of the Roeblings designs. Heavy supports rise to points of the bridge's span. 

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