Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 06/15/2017
NRHP Listing Date 08/28/2017
NRHP Reference Number SG100001509
Located on a well-traveled Halifax County route that became Highway 58, Bloomsburg (Watkins House) is a finely detailed Greek Revival plantation house, among the first generation of such houses in Halifax County. It was built for merchant-planter Alexander Watkins in the late 1830s and/or 1840s. The compact two-story frame house features marble mantels, superb examples of decorative plaster cornices and ceiling medallions, and a stair with foliated ornament. Watkins operated a Bloomsburg Store on his property, which, family tradition holds, did considerable business with immigrants heading westward. The store no longer stands, but surviving buildings on the property include a mid-19th-century two-room brick kitchen, a brick carriage house, and other historic domestic and agricultural outbuildings.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Updated: December 10, 2021
