Bacon's Castle 

The brick house built by Arthur Allen in 1665, now known as Bacon's Castle, is the only surviving example of Jacobean architecture in British North America and the oldest existing brick dwelling in Virginia. Its name, Bacon's Castle, is derived from the fortified role it played in Nathaniel Bacon's Rebellion in 1676. The 17th-century garden may be the earliest found in North America.

Diamond-Etched Love Poem

This historic love poem, etched with a diamond into a glass window by Emmett Robinson to his wife Indianna Allen Henley Robinson, the last of the Allen descendants that lived at Bacon's Castle, has been restored and conserved. The etching is dated September 1840. View a reproduction of the Emmett Robinson Poem (PDF).

Paranormal Phenomena

The castle's most notable phenomenon is a mysterious fireball. Somewhere between the garret and second floor near the stair tower, the fireball appears, races down the tower, out of the former back door (now bricked over) and streaks through a farm field toward the Lawnes Creek Parish Ruins and cemetery. Other tales include an apparition of a woman in a white dress that appears in the castle yard, atop the 1854 Wing Stair Tower. This apparition reportedly enjoys tickling sleeping children in the middle of the night.