Hidden Hillsborough

Hidden Hillsborough: Historic Dependencies and Landscapes in a Small Southern Town, a four-color book, is filled with beautiful photographs by noted Hillsborough photographer Elizabeth Matheson, as well as maps and essays by a dozen local citizens. The book was inspired by curiousity about mysterious elements around town: for example, a structure in someone's backyard, stone steps that don't seem to lead anywhere, berms along certain Hillsborough streets that serve no apparent purpose, and other unusual features. Hidden Hillsborough reveals the purpose of the features mentioned above, as well as many others, telling their story and the story of Hillsborough. Photographed and documented are such topics as the town's street system, remnants of early sidewalks, gardens, well houses, spring houses, outdoor kitchens, barns, icehouses, offices, necessaries, slave houses, and educational institutions. As Callie Connor notes in her fine introductory and concluding notes, ". . . seeing historic Hillsborough today implies a task for both the eye and the imagination." The illuminating material in Hidden Hillsborough enables us to do just that. As writer Lee Smith says on the back cover, the book allows us ". . . to see and imagine--bringing the past brilliantly to life."