Tucked deep in the woods of New Kent County, Olivet Presbyterian Church shows the effectiveness of the Greek Revival style in its most elementary form. The otherwise spartan wooden church is in a temple form and is fronted by a simple Doric portico. Its unchanged interior preserves doors and pews decorated with their original mahogany and bird’s eye maple graining. The pulpit is set off by marbleized steps. Presbyterians came to New Kent County in the mid-18th-century. By 1800 a congregation was meeting in the colonial St. Peter’s Church, which by then had been abandoned by the Episcopalians. In 1857 they decided to erect their own church nearby, calling it Mount Olivet and later merely Olivet. The congregation relocated to Providence Forge in 1934, but preserves the original Olivet Presbyterian Church for annual memorial services.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia