Metro Pulse/Gamut/Rugby

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Historic Rugby
Phone: (423) 628-2441
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Grey Gables
Phone: (423) 628-5252
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Getting There
From Knoxville, State Route 62 (Oak Ridge Highway) through Oak Ridge to Wartburg. U.S. 27 through Sunbright. Turn west on 52 at Elgin. Other information is available on the website and its several links.

...and find pleasure among the roots of a grand utopian scheme

by Barry Henderson

A trip up the winding state highways of East Tennessee's Cumberland Plateau to Rugby is a journey into the past, and not just because it unfailingly calls itself "Historic Rugby." It's a fun, entertaining and fulfilling past as well, and it lies in an area of rugged beauty in any season of the year.

The "historic" hook lies in the origins of Rugby as the 19th-century idyll of a social reformer named Thomas Hughes, a one-time member of Great Britain's Parliament who wished to establish a sort of utopia for the younger sons of the English gentry who would inherit little at home in the prevailing system of primogeniture.

That it didn't work out as anticipated, a mark of utopian efforts everywhere, didn't keep Rugby from becoming one of East Tennessee's most interesting little communities. It's made up of a host of restored Victorian-era houses, an exquisite library, a charming Episcopal church, a schoolhouse-turned-visitors' center and a commissary/ crafts purveyor, all preserved and returned, as much as feasible, to their turn-of-the-century state.

The visitors' center includes, for $2 per adult, a worthwhile museum display and video that describe in considerable detail the Hughes venture and its aftermath.

Founded in 1879, with title to 75,000 acres and options on much more land in Morgan, Scott and Fentress Counties, the settlement had grown to 300 people by 1881 and crested a few years later at about 450 people. At its peak Rugby had about 50 structures, including an inn that was consumed by fire. It was the lack of agricultural potential, the unwillingness of the transplanted gentry to engage regularly in meaningful labor and a typhoid epidemic that sapped the community of its initial spirit.

By the mid-1890s, when Hughes died, it had ceased to be a utopia in any sense of the term, and by 1920, Rugby was down to about 100 hardy souls who formed a nearly typical rural Tennessee community of that time.

It wasn't until 1964, when a schoolboy named Brian Stagg, impressed with the 7,000 volumes still extant in the library and by the unique character of the 20 Victorian structures still standing, went to the state Historical Commission and got help from many quarters in establishing a restoration association, now named Historic Rugby and piloted since his death at age 28 in 1976 by Brian Stagg's sister Barbara.

Besides the restored, National Register of Historic Places-listed community buildings and homes, many in private occupancy, the Rugbyites are developing a new residential area, called Beacon Hill, using the original plat and its roads and lanes as a guide. It is growing steadily, with more than 25 dwellings, designed and built under architectural controls. The new homeowners are lured by Rugby's remoteness, beauty and serenity, according to Barbara Stagg. She says such nearby attractions as the Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area, which borders present-day Rugby, and Pickett and Frozen Head State Parks work to maintain the protected wilderness aspect of the area.

At a little less than 75 miles from Knoxville, the village and its environs are easily accessible for a day trip. It also has commendable accommodations for overnight visits. One of the larger former residences, a mansard-roofed 5-bedroom Vickie called the 1880 Newbury House, with a huge kitchen and fireplaces in the lounge and master suite, is now a bed & breakfast inn, with rates ranging from $55 single- to $89 double-occupancy, depending on room size and amenities. Furnished with period antiques, its rooms maintain a slightly Spartan air in their decor, all in keeping with the style of the community's heyday. Other cottages within Rugby are also fitted out as B&Bs.

A full English breakfast for guests of the Newbury or the cottages is served not in the inn proper but in the nearby Harrow Road Cafe, which also offers lunch for $8 and dinner for $12.50, each with choices from both regional Cumberland cooking and some traditional British specialties. Samplings were better than adequately prepared, and service was excellent. Alcohol can be brown-bagged. An afternoon high tea, with fruits, scones, tea breads and assorted teas can be arranged for a minimum of six persons.

On Sunday mornings, worshippers of all faiths are welcome to attend services at the 1880 Christ Church, which is Rugby's lovely centerpiece.

Just down its central street, state Route 52, to the west of the village itself is the newer Grey Gables B&B, run by Bill and Linda Brooks Jones, the latter a descendant of a Brooks family who settled the area long before Rugby was formed. Her cooking is celebrated pretty widely, and she does private lunches and dinners by reservation. The fare looked great, though it wasn't sampled. For lodgers, dinner and country breakfast are included in the $80 single- or $115 double-occupancy rates for each of the eight rooms arranged on Grey Gables' two stories, with pastoral views and mostly antique furnishings.

The whole Rugby area is prime hiking territory.

One can walk right into the Big South Fork preserve, with its wild river and its craggy, forested ridges and ravines. Were it not for beetle-ravaged pine forests on the way toward Rugby from Wartburg along U.S. 27, the drive there would be among the most scenic in this part of the state.

A benefit to summer visitors is its heart-of-the-plateau climate. It's nearly always a few degrees cooler than Knoxville up there. But the warmth of the people involved in serving and informing visitors to the village is unabated year-round.