In the winter of 1642, Augustine Warner I arrived in Jamestown with twelve new settlers for the Virginia colonies. For bringing these colonists to this new frontier, Warner was given a "head-grant" of 600 acres in Gloucester, Virginia. He eventually expanded his acreage at his new plantation, WARNER HALL, to several thousand acres prior to his death in 1674. During his life, he was Justice of York, Justice of Gloucester and a member of the King's Council in Virginia. Augustine Warner I was the great, great grandfather of George Washington, and an ancestor of Robert E. Lee. Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Augustine Warner I through the Bowes-Lyon family and the Earl of Strathmore. Warner Hall is referred to as the home of the Queen's American ancestors.

Upon the death of his father in 1674, Augustine Warner II inherited Warner Hall and further developed the plantation house and property. Augustine Warner II, like his father, was a member of the King's Council and also served as Speaker of The House of Burgesses in Williamsburg. In 1676, Nathanial Bacon came to Gloucester, after destroying marauding indians and burning Jamestown, and made Warner Hall his headquarters. It was here that he invited the "oath of fidelity" of his fellow countrymen. Augustine Warner II died fairley young in 1681 and was buried in the family cemetery along with his predecessors at Warner Hall.

As the family grew over the years, so did the size of the house. During the next two generations, from Augustine Warner II to his daughter Elizabeth and her husband John Lewis, the family and plantation prospered. Warner Hall came to consist of a large center structure with two separate detached brick dependencies. The east building was the plantation kitchen and laundry, and the west building was the tutor's quarters, planation school room and shipping office.

In 1740, a fire destroyed the original 17th century Warner home, but the Lewis family rebuilt their residence on the same foundations. The property remained in the Lewis family until the 1830s.

In 1849, the center section of the original Lewis house suffered a devastating fire, leaving the two brick east and west dependencies, and outbuildings. Before the turn of the century, the Cheney family had acquired the property and built the present wood-framed Colonial Revival mansion that was popular in that era, on the original foundation and of the same floor plan as the Lewis house.

The house was extensively renovated and modernized less than thirty years ago by its present owners, and it remains as one of the most magnificent examples of plantation life in Virginia. Listed by both the National Register of Historic Places and the Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission, Warner Hall continues to be of major architectural and genealogical significance in American history.

This site maintained by John Reagan and last updated January 06, 2008