Cheryl Greenday

Bricks and mortar efforts toward saving Petersburg’s Jarratt house began earlier this fall on Pocahontas Island. The house is the oldest standing building within what is considered the oldest freed African American community in the nation.

As noted in this 16th century children’s rhyme, the question of how best to grow healthy and productive gardens was an ever present challenge our forefathers and ancestors faced. Whether by accident or studied practice, many cultures and societies through trial and error learned about the many benefits achieved by replenishing nutrients in the soil.

Although the Kentucky Derby is postponed, don’t wait to enjoy one of Chief Justice John Marshall’s favorite drinks, the mint julep. Preservation Virginia’s curator of collections (and native Kentuckian) Lea Lane explores how this icy refresher made its way to Richmond and beyond, then shows how you can make one at home using a locally distilled rum.

The cast-iron spiral steps at Old Cape Henry Lighthouse were installed in 1867 to replace the original wooden stairs from 1792. For the past century, that spiral stair has been painted black, but it wasn’t always that color.

This week should be the Garden Club of Virginia’s annual Historic Garden Week. This one promised to be spectacular, as the Garden Club of Virginia commemorates its centennial in 2020. Since 1927, proceeds from Historic Garden Week have gone to fund garden restoration projects throughout the Commonwealth.

These snapshots of Smith’s Fort were taken in June 1938 and were saved in a scrapbook now in the Preservation Virginia archives. The caption for the first photo references the restoration of the landscape around the house, then known as “Rolfe Place,” by the Garden Club of Virginia.

Every historic building in Virginia has a story contained within its walls. From small residential homes to great churches and castles, hidden narratives can always be found — if you know where to look. Here are the intriguing stories behind some of the oldest buildings in the Commonwealth.

With no electricity and limited resources, games played at parties in colonial Virginia were often quite different from modern forms of entertainment. Some games were safe and laid-back, while others went out of style over two-hundred years ago for good reason. In any case, here are some of the most interesting colonial games Virginia had to offer.

Few states can claim to have a history as rich or extensive as Virginia, the home of the first successful English colony in the United States. Though there are far too many places rich in history to fit onto a single list, here are some that you must-see while hitting the road this summer!

Every historic place has a unique preservation story. There’s something about it that makes it special to the people who live near it, something that makes it part of the fabric of that community. Every person passionate about historic places and their history has a unique preservation story.

This Poetry Month, we’re exploring underrepresented stories and poets. From Lucy Terry Prince to Paul Laurence Dunbar to Maya Angelou, African American poets explored rich and complicated themes in several genres, from verse to ballads and epics and every form in between.

Native American poetry is steeped in oral tradition, which is the legacy of passing down cultural stories from older generations to younger generations through speech. In fact, within Native American culture, poems are often referred to as “songs” because they were traditionally sung not written.

The romantic poetry shared between Sidney Lanier and Virginia Hankins stands as one of the most passionate periods in Bacon’s Castle’s history. Born in Georgia, Sidney Lanier served in the Confederate Army and became well-known for his highly musical poems.

We’ve all heard the phrase, “No taxation without representation!” In 1765, the passage of the Stamp Acts unexpectedly unified American colonists in protest against a tax. The Act threatened American liberty, freedom of the press and incited rebellion and mob attacks throughout the colonies.

Preservation Virginia has partnered with JTI Leaf Services for the past five years to provide a Tobacco Barns Mini-Grant program to restore historic barns in Caswell County, North Carolina and Halifax and Pittsylvania Counties in Virginia. We’re pleased to highlight one of our recent projects, the Bray Tobacco Barn.

Our restoration craftsman, Mike Adams, has been hard at work at our historic sites during the off-season. Historic preservation is an ongoing, never quite finished process, and these cold months are the perfect time to tackle small projects, like remaking and replacing windows. Today, we’re highlighting two recently completed projects at Patrick Henry’s Scotchtown and Smith’s Fort.

In part two of our update on past Most Endangered Historic Places listings, we’re diving into the grassroots efforts that helped protect the Rappahannock River at White Stone and the rebirth of Selma Mansion in Loudoun County.

For more than a decade, we’ve presented our annual list of Virginia’s Most Endangered Historic Places. The list raises awareness of the Commonwealth’s historic places, including buildings, archaeological sites and cultural landscapes, at risk from neglect, deterioration, insufficient funds, inappropriate development and/or insensitive public policy.