Portsmouth Olde Towne Historic District

Olde Towne is a dense neighborhood of nearly twenty blocks on the northeastern edge of Portsmouth, Virginia, overlooking Crawford Bay. Its grid of tree-lined streets keeps granite curbs and brick or stone slab sidewalks, and its narrow lots hold two- and three-story townhouses in brick and frame. The area is best known for Federal and Greek Revival houses, many raised on high English basements reached by long wooden stairs, a form identified with Portsmouth because the low-lying ground prevented digging basements. Portsmouth was laid out in 1752 on land set aside by Colonel William Crawford. Notable houses include the Hill House, the 1799 Watts House and the Nivison-Ball House. Later post-Civil War and early twentieth-century buildings blend with the older ones. An extension adds residences of similar scale and three landmark churches. The district is described as the only early townscape in the Hampton Roads area, and it was the focus of Virginia's first federally-assisted conservation project, begun in 1968.