Old Towns Along the W&OD

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Self-Guided Tours of Towns On Trail

� Falls Church

� Dunn Loring

� Vienna

� Herndon

� Ashburn

� Leesburg

� Waterford

� Hamilton

� Purcellville

� Round Hill

Old Towns

Arlington

Falls Church

Dunn Loring

Vienna

Reston

Herndon

Sterling

Ashburn

Leesburg

Waterford

Hamilton

Purcellville

Round Hill

Herndon Home Tour, first Saturday in December.

Alexandria doesn't have the only old town in Northern Virginia. Leesburg, "the little Williamsburg of the North," has one, as does Herndon, which has a historic district with 304 structures, as does Falls Church, as does Vienna ....

Links To Old Towns Along The Way

• Del Ray, a neighborhood in Alexandria.
• Barcroft, one of Arlington's older neighborhoods. What it's like to live in Barcroft. (Mile 1.7)
• Glen Carlyn, or Carlin Springs, a former amusment park and summer resort away from the city, now a close-in suburb of old homes. (Mile 2.5)
• Falls Church has an extensive web site on history. What it's like to live in Falls Church.
• Vienna has charm.
• Reston, the new town with some old history.
• Herndon was an important stop. What it's like to live in Herndon.
• Sterling has the site of the Summer White House of President Buchanan in 1859.
• Ashburn. What it is like to live in Ashburn.
• Belmont has Belmont Plantation, which is a National Historic Landmark. It also has a neotraditional housing development. "Our community is among the pioneers in New Urbanism," Francine Modderno writes, "to make American suburbs more like real old American towns that are people-, history-, and environment-friendly." She adds, "We're not a REAL old town."
• Leesburg. What it's like to live in Leesburg.
• Paoenian Springs was a spa famed for its spring water (Mile 39).
• Quakers settled Lincoln (Mile 44.3, Maple Street, south) and Waterford (Mile 38.6). Each is a couple of miles off the trail. The entire village of Waterford is a National Historic Landmark. In the words of John Poppeliers, Chief of the Historic American Buildings Survey, "Waterford's homes and shops present one of the finest concentrations of rural 19th-century architecture in the South." What it's like to live in Waterford. Lincoln also has a number of old buildings preserved in a historic district. More on Waterford.
• Hamilton
• Purcellville.
• Round Hill.
• Eugene Scheel of The Washington Post brings you up-tod-date on Round Hill's past.
• Bluemont was the railhead until 1939. It was also a resort. Today it has a historic district which is on the National Registry. (seven miles beyond Mile 45).

Three 18th-Century Churches

• Mile 5.2, near Van Buren Street -- The Falls Church, 1769 The northern-most of the red-brick colonial churches, which defined the Tidewater region, according to Fairfax Harrison, a historian. Replaced a frame structure built in 1733. Has an active congregation. Built with colonial tax revenue, paid for in tobacco. Lent its name to the village which grew around it. A center of local government prior to the Revolution. A recruiting station in the Revolutionary War. But that war disestablished this and other Anglican churches in Virginia. This church had no congregation for several decades. Two residents of early Falls Church were instrumental in saving the building. They are both buried in the historic graveyard. follow City bike trail from Van Buren Street for 1.5 miles
• Mile 44.2, Maple Ave. -- Goose Creek Meeting House, Lincoln 1765-1770 Maple Avenue crosses Main St., becoming Lincoln Road. The Quakers would not want their meeting house classified as a church, but here it is, a field stone building, still owned by the Religious Society of Friends, although it is now used as a private residence.
• See also the Frying Pan Meeting House 1791 a few miles from Herndon.
• At the end of the trail, see Ketoctin Baptist Church, 1854.

Loudoun County Properties on The National Register of Historic Places (and near the trail)

• Woodburn 1820 (log cabin: 1777) 3 mi. SW of Leesburg off VA 704 Leesburg
• Waverly 1890 212 S. King St. Leesburg
• Sunnyside Farm VA Bus. 7 S side, 1150 ft. E of jct. with VA 287 Hamilton
• Oatlands.
• Rokeby 2.4 mi. SW of Leesburg off VA 650 Leesburg
• Nichols, Edward, House 330 W. Market St. Leesburg
• Marshall, Gen. George C., House, 217 Edwards Ferry Rd. Leesburg
• Goose Creek Historic District Roughly bounded by Purcellville, VA 611, 728, 797, 622, 704, and 709 Lincoln.
• Exeter E of Leesburg on Edwards Ferry Rd. Leesburg
• Ball's Bluff Battlefield and National Cemetery Ball's Bluff Leesburg
• Belmont 1.8 mi. N. of Ashburn Ashburn
• Bluemont Historic District VA 734 and 760 Bluemont
• Lincoln Historic District.
• Waterford Historic District
• Catoctin Bridge, North of Waterford
• Movren Park
• Photographic tour of Movren Park

Oatlands

This page was last modified Dec 26, 2000.

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