house
A house is a single-unit residential building. It may range in complexity from a rudimentary hut to a complex structure of wood, masonry, concrete or other material, outfitted with plumbing, electrical, and heating, ventilation, and air c ...
Mecklenburg County, Virginia
Mecklenburg County is a county (United States), county in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population was 30,319. Its county seat is Boydton, Virginia, Boydton.
His ...
. The most intact and best documented
plantation
Plantations are farms specializing in cash crops, usually mainly planting a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Plantations, centered on a plantation house, grow crops including cotton, cannabis, tob ...
surviving in
Southside Virginia
Southside, or Southside Virginia, has traditionally referred to the portion of the state south of the James River, the geographic feature from which the term derives its name. This was the first area to be developed in the colonial period.
Dur ...
was built for Sir Peyton Skipwith, 7th Baronet Skipwith, who moved his family from his Elm Hill Plantation to Prestwould in 1797. It has been operated by the Prestwould Foundation as a historic site since 1963, nominated to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969, and declared a
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
in 2003. and It is located on the north side of the
Roanoke River
The Roanoke River ( ) runs long through southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the ...
, inland, approximately southwest of the intersection of Route 15 and Route 701, and approximately one mile north of Clarksville's town limits. Now a museum property, it is open for tours from April to October, or by appointment.
Description and history
Prestwould Plantation today consists of almost on the north side of the
Roanoke River
The Roanoke River ( ) runs long through southern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina in the United States. A major river of the southeastern United States, it drains a largely rural area of the coastal plain from the eastern edge of the ...
. Its main house is situated on a hill overlooking the upper reaches of John H. Kerr Reservoir, created after the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a dam in the 1950s. The plantation complex includes eight buildings, all built before 1830 and most dating to the 1780s. The stone house features a
hip roof
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downward to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope, with variants including Tented roof, tented roofs and others. Thus, a hipped roof has no gables or other ve ...
and a pair of interior chimneys. The main symmetrical facade has seven bays:
Doric columns
The Doric order is one of the three orders of ancient Greek and later Roman architecture; the other two canonical orders were the Ionic and the Corinthian. The Doric is most easily recognized by the simple circular capitals at the top of t ...
support a gabled porch which shelters the center three bays of the first floor. Two other sides of the building hae similar porches. The secondary buildings of the complex are all wood-frame structures, and include an office, plantation store,
slave quarters Slave quarters were buildings or districts where enslaved people were housed. Slave quarters may refer to:
* Barracoon, temporary holding quarters for the transatlantic slave trade
* , housing for enslaved people in colonial Brazil
Colonial Bra ...
, and a pair of
smokehouses
A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is curing (food preservation), cured with Smoking (cooking), smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.
See also
*
List of National Historic Landmarks in Virginia
This is a list of National Historic Landmarks in Virginia. There are currently 126 National Historic Landmarks (NHLs), and 2 former NHLs.
Current landmarks
The National Historic Landmarks (NHLs) are widely distributed across Virginia's 95 cou ...
Historic American Buildings Survey
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star.
Computer scientists and Mathematici ...