{"nrhp_refnum":"71001104","name":"Lowland Cottage","other_names":[],"category":"building","location":{"address":"SW of Ware Neck, 0.5 mi. S of VA 623","address_restricted":false,"city":"Ware Neck","county":"Gloucester County","state":"VA","lat":37.40131595750006,"lon":-76.46795989497546,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1971-09-22","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Lowland Cottage is a frame house on the Ware River in the Ware Neck area of Gloucester County, Virginia. Its earliest section was built between 1666 and 1676 by Robert Bristow, with later additions and remodelings.","why_significant":"The form argues it is one of a handful of Virginia frame structures that can be dated with certainty to the seventeenth century. The original frame survives, including beaded ceiling beams, and its early central-chimney plan has no known surviving counterpart in Virginia. The largely undisturbed land may also hold significant archeological remains.","narrative":"Lowland Cottage sits in a park-like setting beside the Ware River on Ware Neck, Gloucester County. Its oldest part, a one-and-a-half-story gambrel-roofed frame house about forty by twenty feet, was built between 1666 and 1676 for Robert Bristow, a planter and merchant whose Home Plantation covered the western half of the neck. The house originally had two main rooms around a massive central chimney, a plan like that of New England farmhouses. The chimney was removed between 1831 and 1840. Wings were added between 1783 and 1831, and William Godfrey remodeled the house in 1854 to look two stories tall. A 1935 remodeling restored the gambrel roof and exposed the original beaded ceiling beams. The house was listed because few Virginia frame buildings can be dated with certainty to the seventeenth century, and its original frame survives. The undisturbed surrounding land may also hold archeological evidence of early settlement.","period_of_significance":"17th and 18th centuries","architect_builder":"Robert Bristow (original portion); later remodeling by William Godfrey (1854)","architectural_style":"Seventeenth-century frame house with gambrel roof","criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied as a private residence; condition listed as altered, with a 1935 partial restoration of the original roof shape.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:51:58.013693-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/14/6809/41680914/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/71001104.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/71001104/f7480bf171-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/71001104/f7480bf171-1600.webp","licence":"Public domain","author":"Nyttend","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lowland_Cottage_drive.jpg\" rel=\"noopener\">Nyttend</a>, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lowland_Cottage_drive.jpg"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41680914","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowland_Cottage","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q14712755"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/gloucester-county/lowland-cottage-71001104/"}