Randolph-Macon College, chartered in 1830, is the oldest Methodist-related college in the United States still in operation. At the southwest corner of its 85-acre campus are the three buildings of its historic core, the first brick buildings constructed following the institution’s 1868 move to Ashland in Hanover County from Boydton in Mecklenburg County. The Italianate Washington and Franklin Hall is the school’s oldest building. Designed by B. F. Price of Alexandria and completed in 1872, it long stood in deteriorated condition but underwent an extensive restoration in the 1980s. Pace Lecture Hall (1876), also in the Italianate style, was the school’s principal academic building. The Gothic Revival Duncan Memorial Chapel (1879, pictured above) was designed by Richmond architect William West. Set in a tree-studded lawn, the Randolph-Macon College Buildings form a nostalgic image of a small late-Victorian collegiate complex set within the Ashland Historic District.
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