Bruton Parish Church

A 1715 Anglican church that served colonial Virginia's political elite, still an active congregation

Bruton Parish Church has stood on this site since 1715 and remains an active Episcopal congregation, making it one of the oldest continuously operating churches in America. The brick building with its white tower is an architectural landmark of Colonial Williamsburg and sits on Duke of Gloucester Street in the heart of the historic district.

The church is open to visitors for self-guided tours when not in use for services. The interior contains the original governor's pew, where royal governors sat in elevated state, as well as the chancel, organ, and box pews that give a direct sense of 18th-century colonial worship practice. The graveyard beside the church contains notable colonial-era burials. The building managed to survive both wars and the various fires that destroyed other colonial structures, and its continuous history as a congregation makes it different in character from the reconstructed buildings around it.

things to do sight history
A story
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henry all worshipped at Bruton Parish — it was essentially the official church of colonial Virginia government. During the Revolution, the building served briefly as a hospital. In the 1930s, a retired military man named W.T. Mann convinced himself that Francis Bacon had buried secret manuscripts in a vault beneath the church. The resulting excavations, authorised and then reversed by the church, became a minor scandal in Williamsburg's restoration history.