Historic Williamsburg

1. The Wren Building

Williamsburg, VA

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The Wren building is the oldest academic building in continuous use in the United States. It belongs to the College of William and Mary, which was founded in 1693 and is the second oldest college in the United States, after Harvard, which was founded in 1636. The College's charter was granted by King William III and Queen Mary II to the Reverend James Blair, who served as the commissary of the Church of England in Virginia. The College of William and Mary charter established "a certain Place of universal study, a perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and other good Arts and sciences, consisting of one President, six masters of professors, and an hundred scholars more or less." The charter date can be seen on a weather vane on the top of the Wren building. The Wren was built between 1695 and 1700, before Williamsburg was the capital of Virginia and was merely a collection of crude buildings known as "Middle Plantation." The Wren was at first simply called "The College." Much later it was named for its designer, famed English architect Christopher Wren, well-known for his masterpiece St. Paul's Cathedral. In 1732, the College added a chapel on the south side of the Wren - a symbolic and physical manifestation of the College's close ties with the Church of England. During colonial times, students would begin and end each day with services in the chapel. The College became a state institution in 1906, but the chapel is still used for services, alumni weddings, ceremonies, and music recitals. There are several antiques in the chapel, including an English 18th-century chamber organ, a chandelier, and the English royal coat of arms used during the reign of George I and George II. Beneath the pine and walnut-paneled chapel lies an unusual room that is unfortunately not open to the public - it is a crypt! Bishop James Madison, Sir John Randolph, Peyton Randolph, and Lord Botetourt, the sixth governor of the colony of Virginia, were all buried under this very building. The Wren was also utilized as the temporary headquarters of the government when the colonial capital was moved from Jamestown to Williamsburg in 1699. In fact, the Wren has had an indirect influence on the very creation of America's government. Thomas Jefferson, John Tyler, and James Monroe, three of America's earliest presidents, received their education within these walls. They likely formed many of their early impressions and ideas about government as a result. The Wren was destroyed by three fires and restored and renovated many times in its long history. After the Wren's first fire in 1705, it was reconstructed on the foundation, but differed substantially in design. Thomas Jefferson himself drew up a floor plan that would make the Wren building a quadrangle: a four-sided building with a large courtyard in the middle. However, the plans were interrupted by the Revolutionary War, and the building remains three-sided to this day. The last fire to ravage the Wren was set by Union soldiers in 1862. The Wren was one of many buildings restored to its colonial appearance during the Rockefeller restoration of Williamsburg in the early 20th century. Today, students at the College of William and Mary still take classes in the Wren building.