Sussex County Courthouse Historic District

Sussex, Virginia, is a crossroads courthouse village organized around the Sussex County Court House, a two-story, seven-bay brick building completed in 1828 by Dabney Cosby, who also built Goochland Court House and worked as a mason at the University of Virginia. Its pedimented central pavilion opens into a ground-floor arcade of five rounded arches, and the Flemish bond walls have been painted since construction. A 1954 addition extends the original building. Nearby stand a 1924 clerk's office, a 1950s County Office Building, jail buildings, the circa 1800 Dillard House, a mid-nineteenth-century treasurer's office, and the Bannister House, once a girls' school. The courthouse reflects Jefferson's influence on Virginia public architecture through classical proportions and careful craftsmanship. The village, made up largely of buildings serving county government and shaded white frame houses, keeps the feel of a nineteenth-century court house community despite a few modern intrusions.