Hanover County Courthouse Historic District

Hanover Court House is a small Virginia village that has changed little since the early nineteenth century. Its focal point is the court house of about 1735, a T-shaped, hipped-roof brick building laid in Flemish bond with a five-bay arcade, regarded as the classic example of colonial Virginia court house design. Around the shaded green stand an early nineteenth-century stone jail, a brick clerk's office, and a 1942 library built in colonial style. Across the old stage road, now Route 301, sits Hanover Tavern, a long frame building that served travelers since the eighteenth century and once belonged to John Shelton, father-in-law of Patrick Henry. Henry argued the Parsons' Cause in the court house in 1763. Lord Cornwallis was a patron of the tavern, and J.E.B. Stuart received his Confederate major general's commission in the village in 1862. The district was recognized because it preserves every essential element of a Virginia court house community, and the court house is still in use today.