Historic Area
Welcome to the Colonial Capital. Colonial Williamsburg invites you to join our community on the brink of revolution. As you explore our 301-acre city, you will be transported to the late 18th-century in colonial Virginia. Meet ordinary people during extraordinary times and become immersed in how American ideas on government helped shape the world.
In our 301 acre city you'll find
Historic Places
300+ buildings comprise our colonial capital city. 89 of those buildings are original to the 18th century, while the rest were carefully reconstructed based on extensive research and archaeological evidence. This preservation process started with the founding of Colonial Williamsburg in the 1930s, and continues today!
Look for the Flag
You can tell which sites are open by looking for the Grand Union flag waving by the entrance
Your Admission is Key
More than 25 historic places and trades throughout the colonial capitol are open all day for visitation with your admission ticket.
Historically Dressed People
Throughout your visit, you’ll meet people wearing 18th-century clothing. These interpreters are knowledgeable resources who research and study 18th-century Virginia and then bring it to life as first-person characters, site and orientation guides, or tradespeople.
Nation Builders
Nation Builders portray real historic figures associated with 18th-century Williamsburg who made significant contributions to the American story. During your visit, meet a Nation Builder who helped shape their time and whose legacy continues to influence and inspire American ideals.
Historic Trades & Skills
Discover craftsmanship in more than 20 trades, where modern-day practitioners use 18th-century tools and techniques to apprentice in — and eventually master — blacksmithing, woodworking, or gunsmithing, just to name a few. These world-renowned experts not only make goods and provide services to our Historic Area, they also consult and produce for other cultural institutions around the world. Your admission ticket grants you access to the shops and yards. Visit, ask questions, and observe their mesmerizing work. You will not find a trades community with so many experts in one place anywhere else in the world.
Woodworking Trades
A community of craftsmanship, our woodworking trades include: carpenters, who use hand tools to transform trees into lumber, cut and raise timber building frames, and provide finishes such as siding and roofing; joiners, who produce finish work for buildings including doors, windows, shutters, and cupboards; cabinetmakers, who fashion intricate details of luxury products with hand tools; harpsichord makers, specialized craftspeople who build stringed keyboard musical instruments; coopers, who transform flat boards into barrels of assorted shapes and sizes; and wheelwrights, who combine wood and iron to make functional vehicle wheels.
Apparel Trades
The apparel tradespeople of Colonial Williamsburg are masters of 18th-century wardrobing. Weavers transform flax, cotton, and wool into precise fabrics; milliners create fine accessories; tailors measure and fit clothing for folks throughout the city; leather breeches makers create leather breeches for men and boys; shoemakers make footwear by hand; and wigmakers fashion statement-making headpieces.
Farm-to-Table Trades
Our farm-to-table trades work throughout the year to grow food for the community and to prepare the grounds as needed for the seasons to come. Historic cooks work in locations throughout the Historic Area preparing authentic colonial dishes. Gardeners grow vegetables, herbs, and flowers, and maintain our Sankofa Heritage Garden and our Three Sisters Gardens. Farmers grows large-scale crops in the farming plot near the windmill.
Metalworking Trades
Metalworking trades throughout the colonial capital work to support the operation of the town as well as the War for Independence. Blacksmiths forge hot iron into a variety of tools, weapons, and hardware. The foundry casts objects from metal and the gunsmith creates arms for the community. Engravers create custom inscriptions and designs for metal objects and Tin Plate Workers shape lightweight tools and utensils. Silversmiths create symbols of wealth and status.
Specialty Trades
Some of our skilled craftsman practice very specialized trades, including: apothecaries, who share how medicine, wellness, and surgical practices of today compare with those of the 18th century; bookbinders, who specialize in the time-consuming skill of binding books, a luxury only few could afford; printers, who communicated with the 18th-century masses; and brick masons, who turn soft clay into solid foundations.
Music & Theater
IImmerse yourself in the music of the 18th century. Stand along Duke of Gloucester Street as the Fifes and Drums march by, or listen as the Governor's Palace comes to life with chamber music. Stop by one of our open-air stages to watch a lively performance by Jug Broke Theatre Company.
Fifes & Drums
The march of the Fifes and Drums is an indispensable part of the Colonial Williamsburg visit. The shrill fife and the resounding drum broadcast a wave of sound throughout the Historic Area, announcing the red-and-blue-uniformed regiment moving through the streets of Williamsburg.
Music
Music programs feature sounds from colonial Virginia’s palaces, battlefields and towns, in every community throughout the diverse 18th-century population.
Museum Theater
You’ll also see what we call “museum theater” — scripted performances that share the themes, events, and lives of early America.
Rare Breeds
Cared for by the Coach & Livestock department, horses, oxen, sheep, and fowl contribute to the living history museum in many of the same ways they would have contributed to the colonial capital: as workhorses and oxen pulling carts, wagons, and carriages; and providing wool, eggs, milk, and manure for trades throughout the city.
Arboretum & Gardens
Colonial Williamsburg is home to a Level 2 Certified Arboretum and more than 30 carefully maintained gardens. Explore elaborate gardens behind the Governor’s Palace and throughout the Historic Area.
Preserving the Past
Research, conservation and historic preservation lie at the heart of Colonial Williamsburg’s mission to present the stories of America’s origins. Every day, these investigations of the past reveal new facts that facilitate our understanding of this nation’s beginnings.
Archaeology
Excavations of historic sites began here in 1928. Discoveries continue today as we uncover things people owned, places they lived, and even evidence of the specific plants they grew in their gardens. These findings enable us to better understand the world and lives of Williamsburg's 18th-century residents.
Conservation
Conservators and curators work together on research and preservation projects — with a little help from modern science — to understand and preserve Colonial Williamsburg’s historic artifacts and artistic works.
Preservation
Architectural historians’ research helps us see what 18th-century buildings looked like. Preservationists protect the structures that illustrate life in those times.
Art Museums of Colonial Williamsburg
Discover colorful and whimsical folk art made by amateur artisans in the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum to objects that are useful as well as beautiful in the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum
More to Explore
Explore Historic Places
Know Before You Go
Events Calendar
Historic Trades & Skills
The Historic Trades and Skills community plays a vital role in bringing history to life in Colonial Williamsburg.
Explore Trades & Skills
Learn more about how 18th-century tools and techniques are used today.
Women in Trades
Women have historically played important roles in Williamsburg. Celebrate and examine the experiences of these women.
Margaret Hunter
Colonial Williamsburg’s Margaret Hunter Millinery Shop interprets a woman-dominated trade in an original building that was once owned outright by a single businesswoman.
Clementina Rind
Not long after her husband’s funeral, Clementina Rind sat down at his desk, now hers, to write. During the thirteen months following William’s death, she deftly navigated these challenging circumstances.
Lena Richard
Lena Richard was a woman who began as a domestic cook and ended up a nationally known chef. She was a pioneer who achieved an astonishing amount and brought her culinary magic to Colonial Williamsburg.
Trades and Projects
The restoration and preservation of Williamsburg began in 1926 and has been ongoing ever since. Explore current projects and learn how tradespeople contribute to these efforts.
Williamsburg Bray School
After the building that originally housed the Bray School was rediscovered in late 2020, Colonial Williamsburg researchers began attempting to understand what its interior and exterior would have looked like in the eighteenth century.
The Windmill
Colonial Williamsburg’s windmill, designed and built between 1955 and 1957, is a reconstruction based on the 1636 Bourn windmill in Cambridgeshire, England.
Trades in Colonial Williamsburg
The Historic Trades and Skills community at Colonial Williamsburg uses 18th-century tools and techniques to apprentice in and eventually master more than 20 historic trades and skills. You will not find a trades community with so many experts in one place anywhere else.
Tricks of the Trades
Research into 18th-century methods has taken tradespeople in some surprising directions
A Battalion of Skills
Laborers whose trades helped the military, called artificers, navigated a ‘messy’ supply system
