Bruton Parish Church

Sunday Service at 9am

Meet in the hotel lobby by 8:30am to car pool to the church for Sunday service.

Our immigrant George Poindexter served on the Bruton Parish Church vestry during the time the vestry was involved in the planning and construction of the original church building.  Located in the current church building is a bronze plaque dedicated to the fist vestry, listing their names. George Poyndexter is included, note the clerk of the vestry spelled Poindexter with a “y”, which was not uncommon during this time period.

About the church:

After Middle Plantation, between the York and James Rivers, was "laid out and paled in" in 1633, a parish with the same name was established. Colonists soon built a wooden church, but no one knows when or where. 

In 1644, Harrop Parish in James City County became active, and it united with Middle Plantation Parish in 1658 to form Middletown Parish. Still more consolidation followed in 1674 when Marston Parish (1654) in York County merged with Middletown Parish to form Bruton Parish. The name honored the prominent Ludwell family and Governor Sir William Berkeley, whose ancestral homes were at Bruton in County Somerset, England. 

George's church building was constructed of wooden frame. The building we will be receiving service in was built in In 1706 when the vestry began considering building a larger church after the captital was moved from Jamestown to Middle Plantation (which was then renamed to Williamsburg). Governor Alexander Spotswood drafted plans for the structure: a cruciform-shaped church (the first in Virginia) 75 feet long, 28 feet wide, with 19 foot long transepts (wings.)

Learn more about the long and colorful history of this old parish church of Virginia on its web site.

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