Trinity Presbyterian Church

In 1794, New Canton was laid out as a ferrying point on the banks of the James River. The early shipping port for slate, it became the main entry point to Buckingham County and grew into a bustling town that is now quietly fading. The church is a rectangular brick building set on a high basement that adds height and dignity to the building. The long brick walls of its side elevations are punctuated regularly by four tall shuttered windows surmounted by stuccoed blind arches. The three-bay facade's pediment and its blind arches are also stuccoed. Reversing the procedure at the Maysville Presbyterian Church (BU7), the original side doors are now bricked over and what was a window has become a more formal central entrance above the church's broad steps. This small church bears the stamp of the master builders associated, directly or indirectly, with Thomas Jefferson. The church has interior stencilling, a trompe l'oeil painting in the chancel dating from the early twentieth century, and a graveyard that includes a variety of slate gravestones.