Sperryville Historic District

Sperryville is a small crossroads village on a plain between the Thornton River and the northern Blue Ridge hills in Rappahannock County, Virginia. The historic district covers about 38 acres and more than seventy buildings, mostly one- and two-story wood-frame houses. Francis Thornton, Jr. laid out the first lots around 1818-1820, and the earliest surviving houses, with stone chimneys and double front entrances, stand along Route 1001. Growth stayed slow until the Smoot family of Alexandria opened a tannery in 1867. Many of the village's modest houses date from that era, including plain workers' dwellings and shotgun houses set beside larger homes with sawn trim. Three early 20th-century churches, a row of stores, bungalows and white picket fences add to the setting. After the tannery closed in 1918, little new building occurred, so the village keeps its turn-of-the-century character with few modern intrusions. Several houses now serve as antique shops.