Keswick (Powhatan, Virginia)

Keswick
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Virginia Landmarks Register
Keswick, Main House, HABS Photo
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Location	Northeast of Powhatan off VA 711, near Powhatan, Virginia
Coordinates	37°33′39″N 77°39′52″W / 37.56083°N 77.66444°W / 37.56083; -77.66444
Area	183 acres (74 ha)
Architectural style	H-shape
NRHP reference No.	74002144[1]
VLR No.	072-0045
Significant dates
Added to NRHP	December 19, 1974
Designated VLR	November 19, 1974[2]

Keswick is a historic plantation house near Powhatan, in Chesterfield County and Powhatan County, Virginia, US. It was built in the early-19th century, and is an H-shaped, two-story, gable-roofed, frame-with-weatherboard building. It is supported on brick foundations and has a brick exterior end chimney on each gable. Also on the property are a contributing well house, a smokehouse, the circular "slave quarters," a kitchen, a two-story brick house, a shed, and a laundry.^[3]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974.^[1]

The builder and first owner of "Keswick" was Charles Clarke, who received a grant of 1,500 acres on the south bank of the James River in both Henrico and Goochland Counties (today Chesterfield and Powhatan Counties) sometime in the early eighteenth century. In the middle of the eighteenth century, Clarke married Marianne Salle (a member of one of the Huguenot families settled in Powhatan County). To house his new family, he built a residence known as the "Manor House." This house was small, as it only had two stories with two rooms on each floor. Charles Clarke died in the late eighteenth century and Keswick passed to his son, James, who at his death passed the property to his son John.^[4]

John Clarke built a new house that today is the main house at Keswick Plantation. It had an H-shape that paralleled Tuckahoe across the river.

• Keswick, State Route 711 vicinity, Huguenot, Powhatan County, VA: 2 photos at Historic American Buildings Survey
• Keswick, Brick House (first), State Route 711 vicinity, Huguenot, Powhatan County, VA: 1 photo, 7 measured drawings, and 2 data pages at Historic American Buildings Survey
• Keswick, Quarters, State Route 711 vicinity, Huguenot, Powhatan County, VA: 7 photos, 4 measured drawings, and 3 data pages at Historic American Buildings Survey
• Keswick, Guest House, State Route 711 vicinity, Huguenot, Powhatan County, VA: 1 photo at Historic American Buildings Survey
• Keswick, Kitchen, State Route 711 vicinity, Huguenot, Powhatan County, VA: 2 photos at Historic American Buildings Survey
• Keswick, Smokehouse, State Route 711 vicinity, Huguenot, Powhatan County, VA: 1 photo at Historic American Buildings Survey
• Keswick, Main House (second), State Route 711 vicinity, Huguenot, Powhatan County, VA: 5 photos at Historic American Buildings Survey