Brilliantly sited in Fauquier County’s beautiful Crooked Run Valley Rural Historic District, the distinctive Greek Revival villa of Ashleigh was the home of Margaret Marshall, granddaughter of Chief Justice John Marshall. She received a portion of the family’s Oak Hill estate and had this house built ca. 1840. Tradition has it that she designed Ashleigh herself after obtaining ideas during a trip through the Deep South. The tradition is plausible as the design is not typical of Virginia and resembles the raised one-story antebellum dwellings of Alabama and Mississippi. The house was constructed by William S. Sutton, who erected many houses in the area. The property remained the home of Margaret Marshall and her husband John Thomas until 1860 when it was sold to a relative. Ashleigh has since passed through several owners, but has always been maintained as a prestigious estate.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia