The buildings on the grounds of Radley Run Country Club span nearly three centuries of Chester County history. Three were standing during the Battle of Brandywine in 1777. Two tell the story of the property’s transformation from a working dairy farm into one of the region’s most celebrated fox hunting estates. Together, they offer a rare and remarkably intact window into the layers of life that have unfolded on this land.
Stop One: Forebay Stone Barn / Clubhouse
The original barn on this site was built in the 18th century to support the Painter family’s working farm, storing finished cloth produced by an on-site fulling mill. In the early 20th century, Charles Mather converted it into a state-of-the-art stable for his hunting horses — and evidence of that transformation is still visible today at the east lower entrance. The barn has since been adapted into the Radley Run Country Club’s clubhouse, though its bones remain those of an 18th-century Chester County farmstead.
Stop Two: Kennel Complex
Charles Mather came to this property in 1897 following a falling out with the Radnor Hunt over its decision to replace English hounds with American ones. He purchased the farm at auction for $15,000, imported 65 English hounds, and set about building one of the finest fox hunting establishments in the eastern United States. The kennel complex, designed by Philadelphia architect Charles Barton Keen in 1901, could comfortably accommodate more than 100 hounds at once, with whelping pens, sleeping rooms, open-air runs, a kitchen, and an infirmary — all enclosed within an eight-foot stone wall. Mather’s hunt was notably open: anyone interested in fox hunting was welcome to follow the hounds, if they could keep up. When Mather died, his son Gilbert inherited the estate and eventually replaced the English pack with American hounds. The hunt continued under Gilbert’s daughter Jane until 1964, when it relocated to Pocopson Township. The kennels themselves were razed in 2005 to make way for a golf cart barn. The Kennelman’s House and Huntsman’s House — both designed by Keen — still stand and are rented to tenants by Radley Run Country Club.
Stop Three: Springhouse / Lye House
The core of this structure dates to around 1750, corresponding closely to a tax assessment that year listing a springhouse on the Samuel Painter property. Built into the slope in the banked Pennsylvania tradition, it later served double duty as a lye house — lye being essential for soap-making on a working farm. The ruin you see today is a stabilized remnant of one of the oldest structures on the property.
Stop Four: Collier / Forsythe House
The oldest section of this two-and-a-half-story, eight-bay house was built in 1738 by James and Mary Collier. The property passed through several families over the following century before becoming part of William Forsythe’s farm in the 19th century. It remained a working farmhouse through multiple ownerships until the Mather family acquired the surrounding land in the early 20th century.
Stop Five: Dairy Master’s Cottage and Barn
By the mid-19th century, the introduction of the railroad and the cream separator had transformed much of Chester County’s agricultural economy. This stone cottage with its gambrel roof was built in the late 19th century as the home of the dairy farmer on the William Forsythe farm, with a dairy barn uphill from the house. When the Mather family acquired the property, they continued dairy operations here through a tenant farmer; Gilbert Mather kept a prize-winning herd of Jersey cows on the farm in the early 20th century. The original timber-frame barn was sold in the early 1990s, dismantled, and reassembled as a private residence in Newlin Township. A modern structure now stands in its place.
Stop Six: Samuel Painter House
Tax assessments from 1748 and 1750 show a sharp increase in Samuel Painter’s tax rate, strongly suggesting he built this small stone house around 1749 with his wife Esther. It sat at what is now the intersection of General Lafayette Boulevard and Country Club Road — a location that placed it squarely in the path of events surrounding the Battle of the Brandywine in September 1777.
Stop Seven: James Painter House
James Painter, one of three sons of Samuel Painter, built the original section of this house in 1770 with his wife Jane — a two-story, 30-by-30-foot stone structure. The house was expanded in several phases over the following decades and eventually became the core of what grew into the Mansion House. Like the Samuel Painter House, it was standing and in use during the Battle of the Brandywine.
Stop Eight: Charles Barton Keen Formal Garden
In 1901, Philadelphia architect Charles Barton Keen — the same designer behind the kennel complex — laid out these formal gardens over the site of the Painter family’s original carriage house. The stone columns and retaining walls still carry the arched decorative details characteristic of Keen’s work, and the garden remains one of the most elegant features of the Radley Run grounds.