its creation in 1674, were Col. Thomas Ballard Sr., Daniel Parke, Col. John Page, James Besouth, Robert Cobbs, James Bray, Capt. Philip Chesley and William Aylett. The name of the parish comes from the town of Bruton, in the English county of Somerset, which was the ancestral home to several leading colonial figures, notably Virginia's colonial secretary Thomas Ludwell and the Ludwell family, as well as that of the Royal Governor, Sir William Berkeley. By this time, the Ludwells were living in Middle Plantation, and the idea of moving the capital there had been put forth unsuccessfully at least once. Bruton Parish was about square. Colonel Page donated a plot of land about by and funds for building a brick church and for the surrounding churchyard in 1678. In return for his donation of land and funds towards the new church, Col. Page was allowed to have his family seated in a special pew at the front of the church in the chancel ahead of the congregation. Other subscribers pledged additional funds. The construction contract was awarded in June 1681 and the building was complete by November 29, 1683. The first rector, the Reverend Rowland Jones, dedicated the structure on January 6, 1684 at the Epiphany. Completed in 1683, the brick church, about by , rose to the north and west of the present church building and only a few steps northwest. The buried foundations remain. Country parish changes its role Conditions at Jamestown had made it problematic to serve as capital of the colony, and during the second half of the 17th century, sessions of the House of Burgesses and Governor's Council had periodically relocated to Middle Plantation, or longtime Governor Sir William Berkeley's Green Spring Plantation, both relatively nearby, and considered both safer and healthier locations than Jamestown Island. This and another situation combined to bring tiny Middle Plantation and Bruton Parish to prominence in the colony. In 1691, the House of Burgesses sent the Reverend James Blair, the colony's top religious leader and rector of Henrico Parish at Varina, to England to secure a charter to establish "a certain Place of Universal Study, a perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Languages, and the good arts and sciences...to be supported and maintained, in all time coming." Blair journeyed to London and began a vigorous campaign. With support from his friends, Henry Compton, the Bishop of London, and John Tillotson