Description: The Cathcart Estate was one of the grand properties in Devon in 1903 or 1904 when, looking southwest from Hammer Hollow, Lucy Sampson captured this image of the Cathcart mansion house. The estate ran east along Valley Forge Road, facing down the topography toward the Great Valley below, and approximately .5 miles north of Valley Forge Roads intersection with Upper Gulph Road. The palatial, 5-story mansion house, its grand portico entrance flanked by two cylindrical turrets, looked north upon a vast lawn. A significant 5-story annex, extending back (south) from the main house, had a somewhat âTâ-shaped geometry, with the crossbar facing down upon the grounds below. A shared entrance to this estate, and the facing mansion 300 yards north down the hill called the Richardson House, came from Valley Forge Road near the present-day Sentry Lane, with a circular road connecting the two properties, and a small, secondary oval drive at the main entrance to the Cathcart Mansion. After the Cathcart family sold its interest in the property, the estate became a Presbyterian retirement home, and in 2014 operates as Fox Rehabilitation Services, 445 N Valley Forge Rd. Looking diagonally east and down was a small lake known since Colonial times as Hammer Hollow. The small lake is still found today east of Tory Hill Road and south of Timber Lane. - Herb Fry and Roger Thorne
