The tiny settlement of Sussex Court House typifies the early-19th-century Virginia county seat, consisting of a scattering of court structures with a few law offices and dwellings. The district is dominated by its Jeffersonian courthouse, completed in 1828 by Dabney Cosby, Sr., who built several court structures in the classical style he mastered while employed at the University of Virginia. For the courthouse, Cosby made use of a pedimented pavilion with an arcaded ground floor instead of the usual columned portico. Across the road is the 1817 former treasurer’s office, a story-and-a-half brick structure. Immediately north of the courthouse is the ca. 1800 Dillard House, a two-story weatherboarded dwelling which likely served as the courthouse tavern. Nearby is the John Bannister House, a two-story wood-frame house which at one time housed a girls’ school.