U.S. 50 and VA 734
Located at an important gap in the Bull Run Mountains and on a flat site at a bend in the Little River, Aldie reflects improvements in agriculture and transportation in the early nineteenth century. Turnpikes converged here, and General Charles Fenton Mercer of Leesburg both helped fund them and built a mill. Mercer also founded a village west of his mill complex in 1810 and named it Aldie after his ancestral seat in Perthshire, Scotland. Aldie developed as a small but prosperous village of artisans, stores, taverns, and churches over the course of the nineteenth century. The village retains a variety of buildings from this long history as a trade, transportation, and industrial center.