Battery Court Historic District

Battery Court is a streetcar suburb in North Richmond, Virginia, built up in the early twentieth century around a wooded ravine that holds Battery Park. The ravine bends the street grid into a more organic layout, and tree-lined streets carry mostly two-story single-family houses. American Foursquare houses are the norm, many dressed as Colonial Revival or Bungalow designs in frame, stucco, gunnite or brick. Along the park, Tudor Revival, Prairie School and Spanish Mission houses add variety. The district also has a Classical Revival church, a frame church that resembles a house, apartment buildings, and small storefronts along North Avenue. The city bought the parkland from the neighborhood's developers in 1922 and improved it through the 1920s and 1930s, with Works Progress Administration support for retaining walls and a cobblestone octagonal community building. The district counts 769 contributing buildings, one contributing park, and 170 noncontributing resources, and it adjoins the Barton Heights and Brookland Park historic districts.