One of Virginia's earliest surviving railroad stations, the Beaverdam Depot in Hanover County was built in 1866 to replace a makeshift depot destroyed by Union forces on May 9, 1864. This makeshift depot replaced an 1862 depot destroyed in a Union ra... Read More

Church Quarter is a one-story, log, hall-parlor-plan house that was built about 1843. It remains remarkably intact and unspoiled, a rare survivor of what was once a common house type. Standing on Old Ridge Road, one of the earliest thoroughfares in H... Read More

Clover Lea's broad lawns and old trees combine with the porticoed house to present an idealized picture of an antebellum plantation residence. Although the Hanover County structure is not large compared to the Greek Revival houses of the Deep South, ... Read More

Cold Harbor National Cemetery was established in 1866 on the site of the Battle of Cold Harbor, an American Civil War engagement. Interments were collected from a 22-mile (35 km) area, taken from the battlefields and field hospital sites of Cold Harb... Read More

Located on the old road between the Hanover Courthouse and Mechanicsville, Cool Well is a small, Tidewater-style house that effectively evokes this part of Hanover County's historic connection to the Tidewater region. The house was constructed for Be... Read More

Fork Church, in Hanover County, was erected ca. 1737 as the second Lower Church of St. Martin's Parish. Fork Church derives its name from its location between the North and South Anna Rivers, near where they join to form the Pamunkey River. Typical o... Read More

The historic courthouse (c.1735) along with the Hanover Tavern, and early 19th century jail and clerk's office, served as the political and judicial center for the county. Here Patrick Henry sucessfully argued the famous "Parson's Cause" case against... Read More

Part of the Hanover Courthouse Historic District, begun in 1733, Hanover Tavern is listed on the Virginia & National Registers of Historic Places as a rare surviving example of county government building sets once common in Virginia. The Tavern's ill... Read More

The extensive Hanover County plantation of Hickory Hill has been the property of the Wickham family since 1820, when Robert Carter of Shirley left 1,717 acres to his daughter and son-in-law, Anne Butler Carter and William Fanning Wickham of Richmond.... Read More

Inspired by the Great Awakening, the successful struggle for American religious and civil liberty began at this Hanover meeting house. Bricklayer Samuel Morris and his fellow Hanover Presbyterian dissenters were led in worship by Rev. Samuel Davies, ... Read More

Although the Gothic Revival style never completely dominated America's architectural scene as did the Greek Revival, the Gothic nonetheless permeated many aspects of the built environment, especially ecclesiastical works. This was especially so with ... Read More

Laurel Meadow's dwelling house is a model example of the eastern Virginia vernacular farmhouse of the first half of the 19th century. Its dormered gable roof, hall/parlor plan, and asymmetrical facade are all features associated with the building typ... Read More

Edmund Ruffin, the pioneering agronomist and ardent secessionist, made his Hanover County plantation of Marlbourne a laboratory for his agricultural theories. By showing that exhausted soils could be revitalized with the application of marl, scientif... Read More

Montpelier Historic District is a linear settlement along Old Mountain Road in western Hanover County. The settlement grew from a colonial-era stagecoach stop at the Sycamore Tavern, the oldest building surviving in the district. By the early 20th ce... Read More

Oak Forest was built by Samuel and Catharine Pollard Overton about 1828 during a period of growth in Hanover County. It stands in a grove of trees, surrounded by cultivated fields, at the intersection of two historic country roads that witnessed cons... Read More

Built ca. 1839 by the Sydnor family, Oakley Hill's residence is representative of the numerous simple wood-frame houses that served the masters of the many small post-colonial plantations in the counties around Richmond. Most of these dwellings were ... Read More

Scotchtown is the only original standing home of Patrick Henry, known as the "orator of the American Revolution," open to the public. Henry lived here from 1771 to 1778 and conceived his most influential revolutionary ideas at the home, including his... Read More

Pine Slash, c1750, standing near Totopotomoy Creek in Hanover County, is one of only two surviving original homes of Patrick Henry. The original 300-acre tract, once part of Rural Plains, was given to Patrick Henry and his first wife Sarah when th... Read More

Randolph–Macon was founded in 1830 by Methodists Rev. Hekeziah G. Leigh, Rev. John Early[6] and Staten Islander Gabriel Poillon Disosway. It was originally located in Boydton, near the North Carolina border; but as the railroad link to Boydton was de... Read More

One of the oldest dwellings in Hanover County, the gambrel-roofed house at Rural Plains is an important example of a substantial, non-academic Tidewater farmhouse of the early-18th century. It is believed to be the oldest gambrel roof house in Virgin... Read More

Selwyn stands among Hanover County's Civil War battlefields and was witness to the events of the war in 1862 and in 1864. The house was used as headquarters and a hospital first by Union and then by Confederate armies in 1862 during McClellan's Penin... Read More

Sharp's Oakland has at its core parts of a house that existed when the Hanover County farm was behind Federal lines during the Civil War Battle of North Anna in May of 1864. Some 15 years later, J. D. Sharp from New York purchased the property. He b... Read More

The weatherboarded Slash Church was erected in 1729-32 by Thomas Pinchback and Edward Chambers, Jr., as the Upper Church of the Anglican St. Paul's Parish. The Hanover County building survives as the best-preserved wooden colonial church in the state... Read More

Spring Green in Hanover County has an earlier core that was included in Samuel Earnest's center-hall-plan house of about 1800. This typical country Federal-style house contains a remarkable amount of original woodwork, as well as three brick chimneys... Read More

The brick dwelling house at Springfield, a standard two-story Federal residence located in Hanover County, was built in 1820 for Lucy Grymes Nelson, widow of Thomas Nelson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and governor of Virginia. Though ... Read More

The wooden Saint Paul's Episcopal Church, located in a quiet, tree-shaded spot off busy U.S. 301 near Hanover Court House, exemplifies a rural American interpretation of the glories of the Gothic style. Hundreds of such churches were hammered togethe... Read More

Sycamore Tavern (c.1732) was the fourth stagecoach stop on the Richmond-Charlottesville Road. The tavern hosted travelers throughout the 19th century. The well preserved building houses the Page Memorial Library of History and Genealogy. Open Wednesd... Read More

The Tavern at Old Church is an important example of a rural Federal-style tavern complex, an increasingly rare but once-common building type in rural Virginia. The property formed the nucleus of the Hanover County crossroads community of "Old Church.... Read More

Named for Totopotomoy, husband of the queen of the Pamunkey Indians, who was slain in 1656 in a battle nearby, Totomoi is an undisturbed plantation complex in the midst of a rapidly developing area of Hanover County. The centerpiece is a ca. 1800 fra... Read More

A rare example of a country Episcopal church untouched by the ecclesiological reforms of the late 19th century, Hanover County's Trinity Church was constructed in 1830 by William and Milton Green, local builders. Following the low-church Episcopal tr... Read More

One of the grandest Federal-style houses in Hanover County, Williamsville was begun in 1794 for George William Pollard who succeeded his father as county clerk. Pollard's precise business methods earned him the nickname "Billy Particular." Pollard fa... Read More