Church Tower

For centuries, the ruin of Jamestown Church’s tower stood as the most iconic symbol of Jamestown’s past. The structure survived fires, abandonment, occupation during the American Revolution and Civil War, and natural deterioration over time. Although its construction date remains debated, current research suggests it was built between the 1660s and 1690s as a later addition to the brick church begun in 1639. The church and tower served until about 1750, when the congregation moved to a new church about three miles away. As farmland and woods gradually reclaimed the site of the first permanent English settlement, the brick church crumbled and only the tower endured, reminding sightseers that Jamestown was Virginia’s capital until 1699. Preservation Virginia acquired the tower and 22.5 acres around it in 1893, stabilized it, and built a brick Memorial Church atop the adjacent church ruins for Jamestown’s 300th anniversary in 1907. Restoration work in 2013–14 used 6000 handmade bricks and lime mortar to cap and repoint the tower’s three-foot-thick walls, and archaeology inside the tower in 2019 revealed the western limit of the 1617 timber church.

Virginia · United States