Virginia Department of Historic Resources Virginia Department of Historic Resources
For additional information, read the Nomination Form PDF
VLR Listing Date 11/18/1980
NRHP Listing Date 09/02/1982
NRHP Reference Number 82004610
This archaeological site consists of the remains of an 18th-century workhouse for indigents built by Williamsburg’s Bruton Parish Church. By the mid-18th century, the colony’s poor constituted a significant social problem. A 1755 act of the Assembly empowered all of the colony’s parishes to erect poorhouses; the Bruton Parish poorhouse is one of the few known to have been built. A survey of the site, conducted by the Virginia Department of Historic Resources in 1978, located the foundations of one of the four buildings identified by the French cartographer Desandrouin in 1781-82 as the poorhouse complex. Shown is a sampling of the variety of 18th-century artifacts associated with daily life found in the surface investigation. More intense archaeological activity could produce revealing data about the lives of a predominately inarticulate portion of the colonial population.
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: April 4, 2018
