Town · Doylestown, Bucks County
Doylestown
The Bucks County seat: a walkable downtown of restaurants, boutiques and antique shops, with Henry Mercer's concrete castle, museum and tile works and the Michener Art Museum a few blocks apart.
Doylestown, the seat of Bucks County, is a town made for a day of wandering. Its brick sidewalks and old storefronts are full of restaurants and cafes, independent boutiques, galleries and antique shops, and the streets around the courthouse are lined with handsome 18th- and 19th-century houses. Come for lunch and you may well stay for dinner.
The town owes its most remarkable buildings to one man. Henry Chapman Mercer, an archaeologist and tile maker, built three of them out of poured concrete in the early 1900s: Fonthill, his castle of 44 rooms, inlaid everywhere with his own tiles; the Moravian Pottery and Tile Works, a National Historic Landmark where tiles are still made by his methods; and the Mercer Museum, a towering home for his collection of the tools of early American trades. Locals call the three the Mercer Mile. Round out the day at the James A. Michener Art Museum, which shows the art of the Bucks County region, including the Pennsylvania Impressionists, inside the stone walls of the old county jail. Peddler's Village and New Hope are a short drive east.
Make a day of it
In and around Doylestown
History museum · Doylestown, Bucks County
Mercer Museum
Henry Mercer's six-story concrete castle, packed with tools of early American trades, with a whaleboat, wagons and carriages hanging in its soaring central court.
Photo: KForce at en.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Historic house · Doylestown Township, Bucks County
Fonthill Castle
Henry Chapman Mercer's eccentric poured-concrete castle, a warren of 44 rooms built between 1908 and 1912 and studded with tiles from his own works and from around the world.
Photo: KForce at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Working history museum · Doylestown Township, Bucks County
Moravian Pottery and Tile Works
Henry Mercer's Spanish Mission-style concrete tile factory, where artisans still make handmade tiles using his Arts and Crafts designs and methods.
Museum · Doylestown, Bucks County
James A. Michener Art Museum
Pennsylvania Impressionist landscapes and other art of the Bucks County region, in a museum built inside the walls of the old county jail.
Also nearby
Nearby
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Mercer Museum
Henry Mercer's six-story concrete castle, packed with tools of early American trades, with a whaleboat, wagons and carriages hanging in its soaring central court.
-
James A. Michener Art Museum
Pennsylvania Impressionist landscapes and other art of the Bucks County region, in a museum built inside the walls of the old county jail.
-
Fonthill Castle
Henry Chapman Mercer's eccentric poured-concrete castle, a warren of 44 rooms built between 1908 and 1912 and studded with tiles from his own works and from around the world.
-
Moravian Pottery and Tile Works
Henry Mercer's Spanish Mission-style concrete tile factory, where artisans still make handmade tiles using his Arts and Crafts designs and methods.
-
Peddler's Village
A village of shops, restaurants and an inn among landscaped gardens in Lahaska, with seasonal festivals and holiday lights.
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Graeme Park
The 1720s stone mansion of colonial governor Sir William Keith, later home of the poet Elizabeth Graeme Fergusson, with remarkably original interiors set among open fields.