Of the five outbuildings standing in the side and back yards of the Jones-Stewart Mansion, the only original one (and the only one dating to the 19th century) is the detached kitchen. This two-story brick structure, no doubt built at the same time as the mansion, stands 25 yards southwest of the house (to the right as one faces it), on line with the mansion's rear facade.
Measuring 18 x 36 feet, the kitchen is a symmetrical two-room-plan structure built of 4- and 5-course American bond brick and covered with a hipped roof. The building has four front openings at main-floor level and two above. At ground level, the two central doors are flanked by large six-over-six-light sash windows; upstairs, these are mirrored by scaled-down windows of identical proportions. The end walls of the building have no openings, each incorporating a large interior end chimney.
As at most Virginia plantation complexes of the period, the detached kitchen was the most important domestic outbuilding. The kitchen at the Jones-Stewart Mansion exhibits much of the formality of the main house, being a full two stories in height and boasting such stylish features as a hipped roof, projecting eaves, and outsize main-floor windows.
On the interior, however, the building is purely utilitarian, with minimal ornamentation. Like the more modest kitchen at the River House, it originally followed a symmetrical, two-room-plan format, but here fireplaces feed into exterior end chimneys rather than a single central stack. On the exterior all openings have plain wooden lintels and sills. The box cornice is undecorated, but draws character from its one-foot overhang.
Originally, the interior of the building was probably austerely finished with simple Greek mantels and plain door and window casings. In the 1950s it was remodeled in Neocolonial style to serve as both a guesthouse and as a setting for the owners' collection of antique kitchen equipment and furnishings. At this time, the original central partition was removed, creating a single open room on the main floor. The central ladder-like stair with its picturesque Early American detailing dates to this remodeling, as does the recessed-panel dado, Colonial style door and window trim, and batten doors with large decorative wrought-iron strap hinges. Upstairs, the rooms are finished in a similar manner, with a bathroom being installed between the two bedrooms.
The present rear wing was erected in the mid-1950s; probably at the same time, the kitchen's interior was renovated. The wing, designed to accommodate guests, replaced an earlier wooden addition that stood in the 1910s and '20s when the kitchen was occupied by a succession of farm employees and sharecroppers. This wing is a two-story brick structure with hipped roof. Measuring 15 x 22 feet, it is smaller and not as tall as the kitchen, but similar in massing and detail. The addition joins the back of the kitchen via a centered, single-story frame hyphen, creating a building with a T plan over. Erected by the same mason who built the east wing of the mansion, it blends inconspicuously with the kitchen, being constructed of similarly colored handmade brick laid in five-course American bond. The interior is simply finished, having a kitchen downstairs and a single low-ceilinged bedroom and bath upstairs.