About the Museum

  The Botetourt Building is the home of the Gloucester Museum of History.
    The Botetourt Building, formerly the Botetourt Hotel, was built in the late eighteenth century as a roadside tavern or ordinary and was known as John New's Ordinary. Colonial Gloucester County records of 1802 show the owner as Phillip Tabb of Toddsbury. It is one of the largest, as well as one of the few brick taverns surviving from the pre-Revolutionary period. The building is said to have been named for Lord Botetourt Norborne Berkeley, Baron of Botetourt, sent from Gloucester, England to be Governor of Virginia.
     Sisters, Misses Emily and Ada Cox, assumed operation of the hotel in 1906 and served local residents and travelers in grand style. They purchased it in 1915 and began renovations which brought many changes to the building.
     In 1965, the County purchased the building, restored it to its eighteenth century appearance and renamed it the Botetourt Administration Building. It housed county administrative offices for several years.
     In 1971, the county received the first Association for the Preservation of Virginia Antiquities Award for Historic Preservation for restoring and finding a functional use for the building. 

     The Gloucester Museum of History is located in the Historic Botetourt Building at 6539 Main Street.

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Last update by E. Wirt May 09, 2008