Chatham County's Fearrington Village inspired by idyllic English villages

In 1974, R.B. and Jenny Fitch purchased a 640-acre farm in northeast Chatham County, North Carolina, with a vision to transform the property into a community inspired by the villages the Fitches had visited and admired in England. 

The land had been owned and farmed by several generations of Fearringtons, who inherited the acreage in 1915 from the great-granddaughter of the original owner, William Cole Sr., and her husband Edwin M. Fearrington.

The Fitches’ Fearrington Village was the first planned-unit development in the county and one of the first in the state of North Carolina. The village’s population in the 2020 census was 2,557, making it the third largest community wholly situated in Chatham County, behind only Siler City and Pittsboro.

I first heard about it just three years ago when a former Indianapolis work colleague called me to say he was coming to town and wanted to meet for lunch with several other former work colleagues who also happened to be living in the area at the time. 

He said he was staying at Fearrington House Inn in Fearrington Village then tried to describe it to me when I asked him what and where that was because I hadn’t heard of it before. When I got home from our lunch, I checked out the community’s website, after which I put the village on the mental back burner as a place I wanted to visit with my camera.

That visit came to pass Sunday afternoon. I spent almost the entire time at Fearrington Village perusing the village center and nearby Camden Park and its ponds (see photo of the park above). I didn’t see many homes, just a couple score along the village center perimeter. And because there was a lot of similarity in those perimeter area homes, I didn’t feel driven or motivated to venture deeper into the development. 

Maybe that was a mistake. I was also tired by this time; I’d spent the morning walking 3 miles through the nearby town of Pittsboro (see previous post). So maybe I was needing a convenient excuse to call it a day.

But I will say I found a lot of photogenic scenes just in the village center. And my favorite image of the day, the photo leading off the post, was a composition along a street of some of those homes along the village center perimeter. It’s a composition I made by compressing a long distance using the longest focal range on my 28-300mm Tamron zoom lens.

To view a full gallery of images from the Fearrington Village shoot, follow the link in this sentence. 

A first-time visitor like me gets this initial view of the Fearrington acreage after turning off of Highways 15-501 onto Village Way leading into the village center. 

The realty office (above), barn (first photo below), Fearrington House Restaurant (second photo below), McIntyre’s Books (third photo below) and Belted Goat eatery (fourth photo below) are among key components of the village center. 

A healthy dose of mature trees is a big deal in the village center, as the photos above and the first three below attest. 

As one approaches the restaurant, this precisely manicured maize of bushes is there to behold. I got the perspective of the maize below by holding the camera over my head, pointing in the direction I thought would be accurate, focusing and then tripping the shutter. I was pleased to be able to do it in one take. 

Above and below: The Fearrington Village Garden is situated near the guest accommodations, and I would imagine few guests miss a chance to walk through here to fully appreciate it. 

The village has what it calls a cutting garden near the main garden. I presume it means residents (and guests?) are welcome to take some of these plants.

Above: Another couple businesses in the village center. 

Above and first two photos below: Homes in the village center perimeter area. 

Above and first two photos below: A few more frames from pictures I took in Camden Park. 

Above and below: These concrete sheep area in an open area of Camden Park, although I'm not sure of the significance. I do know the park was dedicated to Jenny Fitch who died in 1995, the year the park's development was completed. The park is also referred to as Jenny's Park. 

Above: With all the village's amenities, one would wonder why would anyone want to approach the real world. But apparently there are some who enjoy sitting on chairs on the village lawn and looking out onto Highway 501 traffic from afar.