Sysonby

An eighteenth-century Atkinson family plantation home overlooking the Appomattox River

Sysonby is one of several historic plantation houses situated along the south side of the Appomattox River west of Petersburg. Built around the 1780s, the house is traditionally believed to have been constructed as a wedding gift from Roger Atkinson of Mansfield to his daughter Ann Atkinson and her husband John Ponsonby. The property later passed out of the family, returned briefly in the late nineteenth century when descendants repurchased it, and has remained a private residence into the twenty-first century.

Architecturally, Sysonby belongs to the group of double-pile, center-passage houses that includes Burlington, Mayfield, and several other prominent Dinwiddie examples. Its basic plan—deep rooms to the front, shallower rooms at the rear, and paired end fireplaces—resembles Burlington most closely, but the detailing is simpler and more restrained. Sysonby is now a single-story dwelling above a raised cellar, although early descriptions suggest that it originally rose higher, likely one-and-a-half stories in height.

During the early-to-mid nineteenth century, the house underwent a significant remodeling. The roofline appears to have been lowered, giving the building a silhouette more in keeping with emerging Greek Revival tastes, and a central porch was added to the front. A unique feature frequently noted by architectural historians is the clever way the chimneys were engineered: multiple fireplace flues converge into a single chimney shaft, with the basement fireplace rising directly and the main-floor flues angling inward to meet it. A small hinged panel in the parlor once allowed a view of the curved flues inside the stack.

Surveys conducted between the 1950s and 2010s describe Sysonby as a frame dwelling with weatherboard siding, a hipped roof of standing-seam metal, and interior end chimneys. Original sash windows with 9-over-9 panes survive in several locations.

Sysonby’s historic acreage has been gradually encroached upon by later suburban development, yet the house still retains a portion of its original rural character, sitting on just over five acres. Historic records also associate the property with wartime activity during the Civil War, including ownership by Lt. Col. Fletcher H. Archer and possible temporary use by Confederate cavalry under Fitzhugh Lee during the Petersburg Campaign.