The Burton-Ingram House — a building saved by being moved

Written August 2026 · Sources last checked 2 August 2026 · Corrections: hello@lewestown.com

The house

The Burton-Ingram House dates to about 1800 and stood originally on Second Street. It now anchors the group of restored buildings that make up the Lewes Historical Society’s complex at the corner of Shipcarpenter and Third Streets, where it is the largest and most architecturally substantial of the assembled structures.

Its double name records two families in its history rather than one, which is normal for houses of this age in Lewes: the town’s buildings are usually named for whoever the local memory attached to them most firmly, and often that is more than one household.

The campus of moved buildings

The Historical Society began assembling buildings on the Shipcarpenter and Third site from 1962, relocating structures there to preserve them and to present local heritage in one place. The Burton-Ingram House is the anchor of that group; the Rabbit’s Ferry House, a small farmhouse from outside the town, is another of the rescued buildings, and the old Methodist meeting house is a further example of a Lewes building that survived only by being relocated.

This was a common preservation strategy in mid-twentieth-century America, and it worked: buildings that would otherwise have been demolished for road-widening, redevelopment or simple neglect are still standing and can be walked through. The Burton-Ingram House would very likely not exist if it had been left on Second Street.

What moving a building costs it

It is worth being honest that relocation preserves the fabric and destroys the context. A house that has been moved has lost its relationship to its street, its outbuildings, its garden, its neighbours and its orientation to the sun and the water — all of which are historical evidence in their own right. Archaeology beneath it is left behind entirely.

This is precisely why the Maull House matters so much in Lewes: it is the oldest building in the town still standing where it was built and the least altered, which makes it evidence of a kind that a relocated house, however beautifully restored, cannot be. Both approaches have their place. A visitor to the Historical Society campus is looking at genuine early buildings arranged into a museum landscape that never historically existed, and the campus is more interesting once you know that.

From the original page at this address

“The Burton-Ingram House on Shipcarpenter Street in Lewes stands tall as a reminder that castaways, when given love and attention, can emerge in beauty and usefulness.”

Hazel D. Brittingham, “The Burton-Ingram House”, Lewestown Publishers, 1997. © Copyright 1997 Hazel D. Brittingham. Short extract quoted for commentary; the full original is at the Internet Archive.