Your question has caused me to backtrack through a lot of Cape Cod memories. I remember deacon's benches along house foundations at side and back doors. Also placed along barn or shed fronts. No recollection of them tight to front foundation facing the street. Charming idea...with a pot of in-season blooms on one end, perhaps a large seated scarecrow in the fall or however you would like to treat the scene. Could be an interesting, straight forward design answer to the common Cape Cod house style.

Yes! Right now I have some pumpkins that would look quaint on my (so far imaginary) bench. I just cannot find any information on their history. Do you know if they started somewhere else and were then brought to the porch? I assume they began in church but can find no references. Glad I stirred up nice memories, and would love to hear if you remember anything else!

Interesting. I don't recall seeing what is described with any regularity.

I know that the church my family goes to started in 1639 and families had to supply their own pews. It was sort of a status symbol to have a pew as you pretty much had to be wealthy to afford them. Sometime, I think in the last century, the church provided the pews and the families were able to take the family pews home. I'm guessing that this happened with most of the churches here. I wonder if it may have been common that they got plopped outside the door as they might not have fit well into these not so huge already furnished homes. It could be a reflection of that time period.

That's so interesting about families supplying their own pews. Makes perfect sense that there was no room in the house, so they would end up on the porch. Caused me to search family pews and it seems some churches had to fight to get heirs to sell their pews (actual space in the church that they owned) back to the church.

The images I found of deacon's benches were in the Library of Congress' Prints & Photographs Reading Room, I did a search for "Cape Cod", and found the Ebenezer L. Atwood House and the Ephraim Harding House to have the benches. Both were in Barnstable County. Not much by way of landscaping back then, kind of fun to look at the old houses.

Thank you, again, laag and nandina, for the information.

I'm taking a garden design class and the instructor has urged us to think about whether a house really *needs* the traditional foundation plantings. He claims that before central heating, house foundations usually started close to the ground and often had nothing in front. When central heating furnaces required air circulation, foundations got higher and people put in foundation shrubs to hide them. Now that's just kind of the accepted look whether or not it's really necessary. He calls them "mustaches" around houses. I like your bench idea, and say "go for it!". If you don't like it, you can always replace it.

I think we will try it, as soon as it's made I'll post some pictures and you guys can let me know what you think. Hopefully it'll be this year but, sigh, it'll probably be next year. Thanks for the added information about foundation plantings!