Berryville Historic District

Berryville, the seat of Clarke County in Virginia's lower Shenandoah Valley, was laid out in 1798 where two colonial roads crossed. The historic district covers much of the town, with 314 contributing buildings, 62 noncontributing buildings and a Confederate memorial. The commercial center has one- and two-story brick buildings from the late 19th century, some with cast-iron storefronts. North of it stands the 1838 Clarke County Courthouse, a temple-form Roman Revival building designed by county justice David Meade, near the Italianate Grace Episcopal Church of 1857. Houses range from a few late 18th- and early 19th-century Federal and Greek Revival dwellings to many late 19th-century frame vernacular houses and early 20th-century Colonial Revival, Bungalow and Foursquare homes. A railroad arrived in 1879 and prompted a building boom, leaving a mill, grain warehouses and a 1910 depot at the eastern edge of town. Little construction after the 1930s has altered the streetscapes, and open orchard country surrounds the town.