{"nrhp_refnum":"86000002","name":"Old Brick Church","other_names":["Lower Church,Southwark Parish"],"category":"site","location":{"address":"VA 10","address_restricted":false,"city":"Bacon's Castle","county":"Surry County","state":"VA","lat":37.108601736000026,"lon":-76.73553373399994,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1986-01-02","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Architecture","Religion"],"significance_levels":["state"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"The roofless brick walls of Lower Church, Southwark Parish, a colonial Anglican church built about 1754 and now maintained as a ruin in a burying ground on Route 10 near Bacon's Castle, Surry County, Virginia. The builder is unknown.","why_significant":"The ruins belong to Virginia's group of some fifty colonial Anglican churches and are one of the state's few consciously preserved ruins of a colonial building. The Flemish-bond brickwork survives, and the walls are the oldest remnant of Southwark Parish, established in 1647. Nine or so other colonial church buildings in the parish have vanished.","narrative":"Set in a tree-shaded burying ground across the fields from Bacon's Castle in Surry County, Virginia, the roofless brick walls of Lower Church, Southwark Parish, remain as a preserved ruin. The church was built about 1754 as the parish's second church, replacing an older building on the site. It measured 74 by 34 feet, with walls of Flemish bond brick above a water table and round-arch windows and doorways. Fire gutted it in 1868, and only the walls survived. Steel reinforcing has stabilized them, though the wall tops were left uncapped and vines and trees still grow on and within them. About half of the arches remain, so the original character can still be read. The ruin is one of the few deliberately preserved colonial building ruins in Virginia and the oldest surviving remnant of Southwark Parish, which dates to 1647. It represents the colonial Anglican churches that symbolized the established religion of the colony.","period_of_significance":"1700-1799 (specific date 1754)","architect_builder":"Unknown","architectural_style":"Colonial Anglican rectilinear church (ruin)","criteria":[],"status_note":"Maintained as a stabilized ruin; the walls were reinforced with steel but not capped, so deterioration continues, and vines and trees cover the walls and rubble. The cemetery is carefully maintained.","vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:52:01.041818-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/4/6839/41683904/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_VA/86000002.pdf"},"photo":{"url_800":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86000002/16df0e32d3-800.webp","url_1600":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/media/86000002/16df0e32d3-1600.webp","licence":"CC BY-SA 3.0","author":"Natwebb","credit_html":"<a href=\"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doorway_of_Old_Brick_Church_(Bacon%27s_Castle,_Virginia).JPG\" rel=\"noopener\">Natwebb</a>, <a href=\"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0\" rel=\"license noopener\">CC BY-SA 3.0</a>, via Wikimedia Commons","source_page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Doorway_of_Old_Brick_Church_(Bacon%27s_Castle,_Virginia).JPG"},"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/41683904","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Brick_Church_(Bacon%27s_Castle,_Virginia)","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7083526"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/virginia/surry-county/old-brick-church-86000002/"}