Our PV Restoration Crew is in the beginning stages of prepping the 1820’s smokehouse siding at Bacon’s Castle for painting this spring. A large percentage of the early siding has splits, cracks and voids that need to be consolidated with various epoxy treatments to make it weathertight. This requires physical paint removal to visually assess …
The Old Dawn School, also known as School #4, is one of a group of schools built for African American students in the late 19th-early 20th centuries in the African American Community of Duval, also known as Dawn, in southern Caroline County. The school’s decorative elements, including wide, boxed overhangs, exceptionally large windows, interior …
By Zoe Brooks My name is Zoe Brooks and I am a junior undergraduate student at Hollins University in Roanoke, Virginia, where I am majoring in History. I am from Appalachia, Virginia, and I just interned with Preservation Virginia’s John Marshall House during the month of January for Hollins’ “J-Term.” The John Marshall House is …
Written by Miller Bowe During the historic period, the main house at Scotchtown was supplemented by a variety of outbuildings. The ice house -one of the two outbuildings reconstructed today- is a remarkable satellite to a remarkable home, a symbol of the prestige and power of the home’s owners. To keep drinks chilled and creams …
Written by Sonja Ingram, Associate Director of Preservation Field Services Preservation Virginia staff was able to get a glimpse of Fort Wool this summer. Fort Wool, a 15-acre, human-made, fort island, located near the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel, was one of more than forty forts started after the War of 1812 as part of an …
By Sonja Ingram, Associate Director, Preservation Field Services, Preservation Virginia October 20, 2021 Sharswood, designed by famed architect A.J. Davis of New York, was built in the 1850s for Charles Miller in the Mt. Airy Community of Pittsylvania County. Davis also designed Belmead in Powhatan County―one of the nation’s most noted Gothic Revival houses, which became …
By Meika Downey, Education Coordinator, Preservation Virginia September 17, 2021 Happy Constitution Day! On this day in Philadelphia in 1787, 39 of our founders signed the United States Constitution, the most radical governing document of the age. While American founders agreed the previous government under the Articles of Confederation needed replacing, the 70 delegates to …
Kayla O’Leary, curatorial intern This summer, I have had the pleasure to be the curatorial intern at Preservation Virginia, working under Lea Lane, Curator of Collections, to learn more about the public history field. As my main project, I have helped develop a new permanent exhibit inside Bacon’s Castle that will help tell the story …
By Miller Bowe As a historic house museum, Patrick Henry’s Scotchtown has unique opportunities to study and explore the details of daily life, including foodways. While Virginia was still a colony of Great Britain, members of the Old Dominion’s upper class imitated the habits of their counterparts in the mother country. Among these was taking …
Since the 19th century, the historic Church Tower has been a lasting symbol of Jamestown Island. Constructed around 1680, the Tower is the only 17th-century building to remain standing above ground on the island. When the Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities (APVA) bought part of Jamestown Island in 1893, their explicit goal was …
