Straddling the Greensville and Sussex county line, the railroad town of Jarratt was burned by Union soldiers in 1864. It was rebuilt but did not begin its modest growth until the Johns-Manville Company established an insulation board factory here in 1938.

From 1919, when George and Laura Feild opened their home to orphaned girls, Walnut Grove has served as the core of an Episcopal residential counseling and educational center for at-risk adolescent females. In 1922 they bequeathed the house and seventy acres to the Episcopal Church. The original portion of the plantation house was built for Hubbard Wyatt, a major landholder in the county. The two-story single-pile, frame house with exterior-end brick chimneys has a rear ell that predates the main section. Although Walnut Grove has undergone numerous changes, including the addition of dormers and aluminum siding, it retains fine Federal interiors on the first floor. Sheltering the entrance is a one-story Doric portico that appears to date from the mid-nineteenth century. A number of nondescript school buildings have been put up on the grounds of this busy campus.