King & Queen Courthouse Tavern Museum

The Courthouse Tavern Museum at King and Queen Courthouse in King and Queen County is home to a variety of old treasures, but recently a very modern, high-tech item was acquired. It is a new touch-screen technology, which enables visitors to take a video tour of the Museum. A viewer may preview the parts of the tour by touching the TV screen that connects to a DVD disc. One third of the tour is located in machines on each floor. The machines are equipped with closed-caption option for the hearing impaired, and the machine on the first floor is equipped to give the complete tour to the disabled.

This new touch-screen technology was developed by Neurologic of California. With the exception of Stratford Hall, the Tavern Museum is the only facility in the eastern part of Virginia that has this equipment. The video tour was filmed in October and November 2001 by Cinebar Productions, Inc. of Newport News. About fifty residents participated in the production. The filming extends from Tucker’s Beach on the York River, up the County, to the Tavern Museum at King and Queen Court House, to New Mt. Zion Church, Robin Taylor’s home, then on to the Bevans and Sutton-Minor farms near at St. Stephens Church in the upper part of the County. Scenes in the film depict various cultural customs of rural King and Queen County at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. Other parts introduce the Exhibits in the Museum, as well as the Building as a late 1800s-early 1900s courthouse tavern.

Alan Sader of Bruington was the narrator; Nancy Herman-Thompson of Shacklefords organized the filming. The script was written by a committee from the Museum Council composed of the following: Nancy Herman-Thompson, Linda Barnes, Jack Spain, Abigail Collins, Ellen White, and Anne Ryland.

The video tour is being paid for as part of a budget for interim improvements being raised by contributions from local residents and from members of the King and Queen Historical Society.