Jackson-Feild Episcopal Home for Girls
You are here
Walnut Grove (Jackson-Feild Episcopal Home for Girls)
1820; later alterations. 546 Walnut Grove Dr.
-
(Virginia Department of Historic Resources)
Straddling the Greensville and Sussex county line, the railroad town of Jarratt was burned by Union soldiers in 1864. It was rebuilt but did not begin its modest growth until the Johns-Manville Company established an insulation board factory here in 1938.
From 1919, when George and Laura Feild opened their home to orphaned girls, Walnut Grove has served as the core of an Episcopal residential counseling and educational center for at-risk adolescent females. In 1922 they bequeathed the house and seventy acres to the Episcopal Church. The original portion of the plantation house was built for Hubbard Wyatt, a major landholder in the county. The two-story single-pile, frame house with exterior-end brick chimneys has a rear ell that predates the main section. Although Walnut Grove has undergone numerous changes, including the addition of dormers and aluminum siding, it retains fine Federal interiors on the first floor. Sheltering the entrance is a one-story Doric portico that appears to date from the mid-nineteenth century. A number of nondescript school buildings have been put up on the grounds of this busy campus.
Writing Credits
If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.
SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.