The county seat of Middlesex County (created c. 1669) moved here from Urbanna in 1851. The county justices selected a town hall–type plan that was then more than twenty years out of date. They paid $3,000 for the building. Recalling the courthouses of Jefferson's time and those of Fairfax (1799), Madison (c. 1830), and Caroline (c. 1830) counties, the structure has an arcade at ground level and jury rooms above the courtroom. The use of the Tuscan order for the cornice is a survival rather than a revival. Except for the thick treatment of the arches, the building looks like a work of 1820 rather than of the 1850s. An addition to the east (1966) mimics the original. The courthouse grounds contain the usual group of buildings, including the clerk's office (1875) and a Confederate monument (1910), put up by the United Daughters of the Confederacy.