Fotheringay was the home of George Hancock (1754-1820), a colonel in the Virginia Line during the Revolutionary War and aide de-camp to Count Casimir Pulaski. He later served in both the Virginia House of Delegates and in the U. S. Congress. Hancock’s daughter Julia was married to the explorer William Clark. Dramatically placed against a steep mountain south of Elliston in Montgomery County, Hancock’s house, built ca. 1815, is an elegant expression of the Federal style for what was a distant area. The ornate interior woodwork, is highlighted by chimneypieces and doorways decorated with motifs copied from pattern books by the English architect William Pain. The delicately carved work exhibits the high quality of the area’s post-Revolutionary War craftsmanship. As originally built, Fotheringay lacked the two bays south of the portico, resulting in an unbalanced look. An architecturally compatible wing added in the 1950s made the façade symmetrical.
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