New London Academy was chartered in 1795 as a boarding school for boys. One of its pupils was Thomas Jefferson's grandson Francis Eppes, later the owner of Poplar Forest (BD26). The school became coeducational in the 1870s and was associated with Virginia's new public school system in the late 1880s. Under its charter, the school was operated until the 1990s by its own Board of Managers. At the rear of the school complex, the academy's former kitchen, a frame building with an interior stone chimney, now serves as a small museum. Facing the highway, the academy's classroom and dormitory is a two-story brick building with a Greek Revival porch.