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Driving Tours

"This beautiful country . . . is decidedly the finest part of the Old Dominion I have yet seen, both as regards fertility of soil and beauty of scenery."

— Lt. J.C. McLure, 5th South Carolina Volunteers, October 26, 1861

Perhaps the most striking thing for the hiker, biker, or motorist in the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area is that our historic road network is largely intact. It looks much as it did to farmers and freedom seekers, Civil War soldiers and migrating settlers. It still connects numerous rural villages and small towns, providing lovely viewscapes dotted by historic structures.  Over 330 miles of these roads remain unpaved, and the experience of driving these historic roads gives insight into what earlier generations knew and saw. We hope you take your time to take in their atmosphere, take photos, and literally touch the past where you can.   

Quaker Sites in Loudoun

Although Quakers had established themselves in Maryland as early as 1656, the first Quakers in Northern Virginia did not arrive until the 1730s. This tour explores sites related to the early Quaker communities of Waterford and Goose Creek. Sites include eighteenth century meeting houses, Quaker homes, and the Oakdale School, which was built by the Society of Friends in 1815 to serve the local Quaker and African-American community in Goose Creek (now Lincoln).

For an in-depth study of the Quaker community at Goose Creek, visit www.LincolnQuakers.com.

Loudoun County in the Revolutionary War

This tour is designed to show you locations from a largely overlooked era of Loudoun’s past—its colonial and Revolutionary history. Though no battles were fought here, Loudoun’s Revolutionary Era sites still have important stories to tell.

Raised from Obscurity: A Driving Tour of the Cavalry Battles of Aldie, Middleburg, and Upperville

June 1863 was a critical turning point in the American Civil War. In the war's eastern theater, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee turned his army northward, his eyes set on crossing the Potomac River in his second invasion of the North. Over five days in June 1863, the horsemen of both armies clashed in the scenic Loudoun Valley, a core piece of the Mosby Heritage Area. Union troopers sought to discover the Confederates' whereabouts; Southern soldiers tried to block the curious Federals. Incredibly, many of the same roadways, stone walls, and landscapes that witnessed those great cavalry clashes remain intact.

Hunting the Gray Ghost

Of all the stories the northern section of the Virginia Piedmont is known for, it is probably best known for that of the “Gray Ghost”—Civil War Confederate partisan Colonel John Singleton Mosby.  Reviled by the North, storied in the South during the war, Mosby’s cavalry exploits in this region came to be the stuff of legend. 

Today, the sites associated with the legendary Mosby stories are strikingly still present. There are a total of five Hunting the Gray Ghost tours you can explore here in the Virginia Piedmont Heritage Area. Originally a booklet designed for the Civil War Sesquicentennial, these tours were created by VPHA Historian Emeritus Richard Gillespie with the assistance of several notable Civil War historians.

Loudoun in the Great War

In 1917 Loudoun County had just begun to emerge from the shadow of the Civil War a half-century earlier.  It was still a rural county of some 21,000 souls, largely employed in raising cattle, horses, and grain. America's entry into World War I disrupted all of that.  This walking tour uses the towns of Leesburg and Purcellville to look at the First World War's impact on everyday Virginians. It will also bring you to Morven Park, the home of Virginia's wartime governor, Westmoreland Davis.

Loudoun's Historic Civil Rights Landscape

For over two centuries, Loudoun’s African American communities have stood at the center of the long struggle for justice and equality. This tour showcases the existing sites in Loudoun County related to the battle for Civil Rights as it played out on the historic landscapes of Leesburg, Waterford, and Purcellville in the 19th and 20th centuries.