Grace Episcopal Church at Ca Ira, once a town laid out in Cumberland County in 1787, survives as a visually engaging illustration of the stylistic hybridization that occurred with Romantic Revivalism in the antebellum period. Its temple form and precise Flemish-bond brickwork are an offspring of Virginia’s Classical Revival tradition fostered by Thomas Jefferson, while its Greek and Gothic details were adapted from builders’ pattern books. The pulpit is based on a pulpit design from Asher Benjamin’s Practical House Carpenter (1830). The Grace Church was erected in 1840-43 by Valentine Parrish, a local master builder, and is the only remaining building of Ca Ira, which enjoyed brief prosperity before the Civil War. The name Ca Ira is probably derived from a French Revolutionary marching song.
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