Prince George Street and Old Tavern

Prince George Street and Old Tavern. Urbanna, Virginia. Prince George Street is one of the original streets shown on early 1700s town survyes. The Middlesex County Courtyard backed up to the street and today the colonial "Old Tavern" still stands. Taverns or ordinaries were important to Middlesex's county street. On court days horse and buggy was the only transportation to town by land and sailing vessel by sea. a trip to court by anyone living any distance meant spending nights. In 1793 the town had only nine private dwellings but two taverns. Although the court restricted gaming in taverns, Urbanna, like most Tidwater Virginia communities of those times, had "tipple" (drinking intoxicants) and gaming. The taverns offered card games, dice, backgammon, billiards, horse racing and cock fighting as well as sheeted beds and a clean stall for the horse at night. Through the generations, It has been rumored that famed Virginia patriot, Patrick Henry, spent a night or two at Urbanna's Old Tavern. American patriot Dr. Arthur Lee of Lansdowne owned two lots on the street in 1790. A Methodist Church was built in 1902 on the corner of Prince George and Cross streets. Homes and buildings on this street today reflect a mixture of colonial, antebellum, civil war and post civil war architecture.