Kinsale Historic District

Kinsale is a small waterfront village in northeastern Westmoreland County, Virginia, where four creeks and rivers meet. The historic district covers about 113 acres and includes 66 contributing resources, mainly houses, outbuildings, a few commercial buildings and a cemetery. Established by the Virginia Assembly in 1784, the village prospered as a deepwater port, handling both schooner trade and steamboat service to Baltimore. Fires and wartime losses in 1812 and the Civil War removed most early buildings, so the surviving fabric is mostly from 1870 to the early 20th century. Only two antebellum houses remain, the Great House and the Little House, along with the Bailey Cemetery, where a midshipman killed in 1813 is buried. Typical buildings include I-houses, Queen Anne dwellings with projecting bays, American Foursquare houses and a former general store. Commercial activity ended with the closing of the last cannery in the early 1950s, and the grid street plan still reflects the village's early layout.