Berryville began as a colonial crossroads settlement known as Battletown. It expanded in the early 1800s following the construction of turnpikes linking Berryville to trade between Winchester and Alexandria. The town became the county seat when Clarke County was formed from Frederick in 1836. The arrival of the Shenandoah Valley Railroad in 1879 secured Berryville’s role as a processing and shipping center for the lower Shenandoah Valley. Preserved in the Berryville Historic District is a fine range of commercial, residential, governmental, religious, and industrial buildings associated with nearly all periods in the town’s development. These structures, particularly the tidy old houses lining its tree-shaded residential streets, preserve a classic American small-town image. Principal landmarks are the 1836 courthouse and the 1857 Italianate Grace Episcopal Church. The 1810 Sarah Stribling house, long the Battletown Inn, and the adjacent Jonathan Smith house, are conspicuous buildings of the Federal period within the Berryville Historic District.
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