Blenheim (Boundary Increase)

Blenheim is a 334-acre plantation on Falling River in eastern Campbell County, Virginia. Its focal point is a weatherboarded, story-and-a-half Federal-period house at the end of a half-mile cedar-lined lane, overlooking fields and the river bottom lands. The house keeps its original porches, beaded weatherboarding, louvered shutters and distinctive provincial Federal woodwork, and its main stair is noted for outstanding carved decoration. Remnants of an early formal garden east of the house may hold archaeological potential. The boundary increase brings the whole farm into the listing, since its limits roughly match those that defined the plantation before the Civil War. They include wooded uplands, open fields, the historic approach lane and the river bottoms. Together these preserve the rural context and screen the house from nearby modern housing. The scattered later outbuildings, dating from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, are compatible but not contributing. The period of significance runs from 1809 to 1870, under the architecture area.