With its sectioned massing, Battersea, on the western edge of the city of Petersburg, displays perhaps best the Anglo-Palladian influence on Virginia’s finer colonial plantation houses. The elegant but compact house was built in 1768 for John Banister, a Revolutionary delegate, congressman, and framer of the Articles of Confederation. Remodeled more than once, the house displays three-part windows and much trim, both inside and out, which dates from the early 19th century. The elaborate Chinese lattice stair, however, based on a published design by the English architect William Halfpenny, is original and is the finest example of its type in the state. The center block at one time had a two-level portico, of which parts of the lower tier remain. Despite the development of much of the plantation’s former acreage (see the North Battersea/Pride’s Field Historic District), the house preserves a rural setting along the Appomattox River. Battersea is owned and exhibited by the city of Petersburg.

An updated nomination for Battersea was approved in 2006.  This documentation includes a detailed inventory of historic resources on the 35.5-acre property, information detailing archaeological research, and clarification of periods, areas and levels of significance that had been roughly noted in the original 1969 nomination.
[VLR Approved: 12/7/2005 & 4/12/2006; NRHP Approved: 1/27/2006, 5/26/2006 & 9/14/2006]