Wheatland was built in 1840 as the centerpiece of a 1,300-acre plantation in Northumberland County. One of the Northern Neck’s most sophisticated antebellum houses, Wheatland was originally the home of Dr. William Hopkins Harding, a wealthy physician and planter who served in the General Assembly. Except for wings added in 1848, the dwelling is little altered and exudes a stately air with its regular five-bay facades and nearly identical two-tiered Doric porticos on the land and river fronts. Inside is bold, provincial Federal- and Greek Revival-style woodwork as well as a finely detailed Greek Revival parlor ceiling medallion echoing a design in Asher Benjamin’s The Practice of Architecture (1833). The house at Wheatland is set off by four symmetrically arranged original outbuildings linked by a series of early walkways. An impressive tree-lined driveway leads across level fields to the entrance.
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
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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