Description: At the end of the 19th century a small Berwyn hotel called the Wynburne Inn rose upon a portion of a planned town called Glassley Commons that was never built, and a productive dairy farm that had been developed in 1851 by the Smith family. In 1885, in response to the commercial success of the Devon Inn, the Smith farm was purchased and, using a substantial part of the walls of the old barn, a large ornate main building was built and named the Wynburne Inn. A sizable clapboard annex building was added several years later. The 60 room inn was advertised as a summer boarding house, open from May 15th to October 31st. The Inn stood on the south side of the Old Lancaster Turnpike near today’s Littlebrook Avenue, some 500’ east of the ’Pike’s intersection with Francis Avenue. The Inn was about one-half mile east of the Berwyn station by way of the "Lower Bridge" under the Pennsylvania Railroad main line. In this winter image of the Inn taken between 1912-14, the gazebo is clearly shown atop the main Inn building where one could relax in the summer and look out upon the bustling village of Berwyn. - Herb Fry and Roger Thorne
