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New London Academy, Virginia Draft:

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New London Academy is a historic school located at Forest, Bedford County, Virginia. New London Academy is also known as one of the oldest continuously running public schools of Virginia or even the South.

History
In the seventeenth century, New London, Virginia's hunger for accessible education brought forth the need for a proper American education building. Thus, New London Academy was chartered by the Virginia General Assembly in December 1795. The charter from the Virginia General Assembly was significant because it acted as accreditation for the free public school. Around 1797, it was established on its present campus near the former town of New London as a classical school for boys. It became co-educational in the 1870s and in the late-1880s became affiliated with the new public school system. It is the only public school in Virginia to operate under a charter from the General Assembly. In the early stages of the academy, those at the academy hosted local lotteries in order to fund operations due to the lack of state funding.

The Original School Building
The original structure was built between 1837 and 1839, and is a two-story, brick building with a hipped roof. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972. The historic building originally had a square frame that would later be updated with a brick structure. It also used to have a porch in the front that had white square columns that were original to the structure.

The Separate Kitchen Building
Also on the property is a contributing frame kitchen building that serves as the academy museum. The separate kitchen structure came into existence in 1797 because there was danger of fire in having a kitchen connected to a bigger building. This was the case for New London Academy. The original use of course was for the purpose of cooking so there is a central chimney that has two openings and hearths on either sides of both rooms. Because of the nature of the large fireplaces being useful for cooking, the struggle was to actually heat the building, but the fireplaces were much to large to accomplish that need. The kitchen structure has had many different uses. A few uses would be as a storage shed and offices for the faculty staff at the academy. In 1890 the structure was used as a music studio.