Keswick (Powhatan, Virginia)

Keswick is a historic plantation house near Powhatan, in Chesterfield County and Powhatan County, Virginia, USA. It was built in the early-19th century, and is an "H"-shaped, two-story, gable-roofed, frame-with-weatherboard building. It is supported on brick foundations and has a brick exterior end chimney on each gable. Also on the property are a contributing well house, a smokehouse, the circular "slave quarters," a kitchen, a two-story brick house, a shed, and a laundry.[3]

Keswick
Keswick, Main House, HABS Photo
Keswick (Powhatan, Virginia) is located in Virginia
Keswick (Powhatan, Virginia)
Keswick (Powhatan, Virginia) is located in the United States
Keswick (Powhatan, Virginia)
LocationNortheast of Powhatan off VA 711, near Powhatan, Virginia
Coordinates37°33′39″N 77°39′52″W
Area183 acres (74 ha)
Architectural styleH-shape
NRHP reference No.74002144[1]
VLR No.072-0045
Significant dates
Added to NRHPDecember 19, 1974
Designated VLRNovember 19, 1974[2]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.[1]

History

The builder and first owner of "Keswick" was Charles Clarke, who received a grant of 1,500 acres on the south bank of the James River in both Henrico and Goochland Counties (today Chesterfield and Powhatan Counties) sometime in the early eighteenth century. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Clarke married Marianne Salle (a member of one of the Huguenot families settled in Powhatan County). To house his new family, he built a residence known as the "Manor House." This house was small, as it only had two stories with two rooms on each floor. Charles Clarke died in the late eighteenth century and Keswick passed to his son, James, who at his death passed the property to his son John.[4]

John Clarke built a new house that today is the main house at Keswick Plantation. It had an H-shape that paralleled Tuckahoe across the river.

References
  1. "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved 5 June 2013.
  3. Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Staff (November 1974). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Keswick" (PDF). Virginia Department of Historic Resources. and Accompanying photo
  4. Robinson, Maurice (2020). Hidden History of Early Richmond. Charleston, SC: The History Press. pp. 23–25. Retrieved 9 February 2021.


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