Western Loudoun

The towns

Leesburg to the ridge.

The county seat, then seven towns and one landmark village to its west, out to the Blue Ridge.

The county seat

Leesburg

Loudoun’s county seat since 1758, where the old Carolina Road crossed the Potomac Ridge Road. Its historic downtown is around King and Market Streets.

Capital of hunt country

Middleburg

Foxhounds on the town seal, tack shops on Washington Street, and the National Sporting Library at the edge of town.

The hub

Purcellville

Where western Loudoun does its errands, and where the W&OD Trail ends after 45 miles from Arlington.

The landmark

Waterford

Founded by Quakers around 1733 and so little changed that the village and its fields are a National Historic Landmark.

The mountain village

Bluemont

Tucked against the Blue Ridge at Snickers Gap, where the Appalachian Trail crosses Route 7.

The stone village

Hillsboro

One street of 18th-century stone houses in the gap of Short Hill Mountain, and one of Virginia’s smallest towns.

The gateway

Round Hill

The last town before the mountain, where the farmland starts to fold into the Blue Ridge.

The quiet one

Hamilton

A half-mile of Victorian porches on the old Leesburg to Snickersville turnpike. It doesn’t perform for visitors.

The German settlement

Lovettsville

Settled from Pennsylvania in the 1730s, closer to Maryland than to Leesburg, and proud of both facts.

Downtown pages: Purcellville, Middleburg, Lovettsville, Leesburg.

Photographs from Wikimedia Commons: