Spring Bank, also known as Ravenscroft and Magnolia Grove, is a historic

plantation house A plantation house is the main house of a plantation, often a substantial farmhouse, which often serves as a symbol for the plantation as a whole. Plantation houses in the Southern United States and in other areas are known as quite grand and e ...

located near Lunenburg,

Lunenburg County, Virginia Lunenburg County is a county located in the Commonwealth of Virginia. As of the 2020 census, the population was 11,936. Its county seat is Lunenburg. History Lunenburg County was established on May 1, 1746, from Brunswick County. The county ...

. It was built about 1793, and is a five-part Palladian plan frame dwelling in the Late Georgian style. It is composed of a two-story, three-bay center block flanked by one-story, one-bay, hipped roof wings with one-story, one-bay shed-roofed wings at the ends. Also on the property are the contributing

smokehouse A smokehouse (North American) or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more.

, a log slave quarter, and frame tobacco barn, and the remains of late-18th or early-19th century dependencies, including a kitchen/laundry, ice house, spring house, and a dam. Also located on the property are a family cemetery and two other burial grounds. It was built by

John Stark Ravenscroft John Stark Ravenscroft (May 17, 1772 – March 5, 1830) was the first Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina and helped organize the Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee. Early life Ravenscroft was born in 1772 on his family plantation near ...

(1772–1830), who became the first Bishop of the

Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina The Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina is a diocese of the Episcopal Church within Province IV that encompasses central North Carolina. Founded in 1817, the modern boundaries of the diocese roughly corresponds to the portion of North Caroli ...

, serving from 1823 to 1830. an
''Accompanying photo''
/ref> It was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

in 2007.

References

Plantation houses in Virginia Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Virginia Georgian architecture in Virginia Houses completed in 1793 Houses in Lunenburg County, Virginia National Register of Historic Places in Lunenburg County, Virginia {{LunenburgCountyVA-NRHP-stub