One of central Virginia's few examples of Ruskinian Venetian Gothic, the Miller School, with its polychrome brick and weighty scale, recalls English “redbrick” universities. The will of Samuel Miller (1792–1869), who was born nearby and who amassed a considerable fortune in tobacco and agricultural commodities, provided for the establishment of an institution for the education and maintenance of the orphaned and poor children of Albemarle County. The result was a school devoted to industrial arts and manual labor. Construction began on a 1,000-acre farm in 1874 and continued for the next twenty years. The first students entered in 1877. The school became coeducational in 1884. It remains a thriving institution, and its student body is no longer restricted to the disadvantaged. The central block is enormous and richly detailed. The interior still retains many details.
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Miller School of Albemarle
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