The New County Jail is part of the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, which is identified as structure number 8.[1]
The New County Jail is part of the Appomattox Court House National Historical Park, which is identified as structure number 8.[1]
The New County Jail, a brick jail built from 1860 to 1867, was restored in 1963 to 1965 by the National Park Service. It was permanently preserved in 2000. It is significant by virtue of its association with the site of General Robert E. Lee's surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant. It represents the participation of the federal government in the preservation and commemoration of historically signficant events. It is also significant because of its distinctive characteristics as an example of embodying a type, period, and method of construction in the 1860s to 1870s in rural Virginia.[1]
The New County Jail is typical of both a county government seat in Piedmont Virginia in the mid-nineteenthh century and of a farming community in the state. The building served as a jail from 1860 to 1892. The district of Clover Hill used it as their magisterial district polling station from 1892 to 1940.[1]
It is constructed with interior partitions of brick with stone window sills and lintels at the cells. Its layout and exterior finish clearly depict its use as a jail. The three story building is forty feet wide and twenty feet deep. The structure is made of brick and it has an attic. It is built with a standing seam gable roof. It has at least two different brick types due to the long construction time. There is a wooden platform on brick piers at the rear door and the metal frame walls are mortared. The gable roof was replaced in 1978. The chimney tops were repaired in 1982. The exterior walls are of local brick with half-brick vent holes into the crawl space below the first floor level. The second and third floor has outer east and west windows. The cell windows have lintels and sills cut from local sandstone. The center hall and first floor windows have wood sills and lintels. The first floor and center windows of the second and third floor north sides are 6/6 DH windows. The center north elevation entrance is a four-raised panel door surrounded by four-light transom. The gable ends are void of any window openings as is the south facade.[1]
