The Secretary's Office in Williamsburg, VA
Located at east end of Duke of Gloucester St. the Secretary's Office is the oldest archival structure in the western hemisphere and an original example of 18th-century thinking about how to make a building safe from fire but warm and reliably dry.
It was built after the fire that destroyed the capitol in 1747 to house the secretary of the colony and for “the Preservation of the Public Records and Papers,” this brick building served as Virginia's clerical center. The colonial chief clerk trained all future county clerks here and maintained the official records of land grants. The building's quality and construction parallel those of Virginia courthouses and Anglican churches of the same era. Its refined brickwork is punctuated with a gauged brick frontispiece matching those at nearby Carter's Grove.
The Secretary's Office in Williamsburg, VA
Located at east end of Duke of Gloucester St. the Secretary's Office is the oldest archival structure in the western hemisphere and an original example of 18th-century thinking about how to make a building safe from fire but warm and reliably dry.
It was built after the fire that destroyed the capitol in 1747 to house the secretary of the colony and for “the Preservation of the Public Records and Papers,” this brick building served as Virginia's clerical center. The colonial chief clerk trained all future county clerks here and maintained the official records of land grants. The building's quality and construction parallel those of Virginia courthouses and Anglican churches of the same era. Its refined brickwork is punctuated with a gauged brick frontispiece matching those at nearby Carter's Grove.