Explore Loudoun County’s largest grist mill with an engaging guided tour. Step inside the historic merchant mill in Aldie and discover its remarkable fully automated design. Experience the power of the tandem waterwheels and learn how geography and technology shaped the mill’s location and success. Along the way, learn the rich history of the Village of Aldie — a community that has flourished for more than 215 years!*

NOVA Parks offers a variety of programs designed to help your scout achieve a wide range of badges. Badge programs are currently available at three different locations, with more being added all the time! 

For more information and to book your program, contact winkler@nvrpa.org or call 703-344-0444.

Before Europeans arrived, the land that is now Fountainhead Regional Park was home to Native Americans. There is evidence of human habitation as many as 10,000 years ago. The area was likely occupied by Monacan and Algonquian tribes, since both settled along waterways such as Bull Run and the Occoquan River.

In July 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette returned to the United States for an extensive tour of the country he fought with against Great Britain during the American Revolution. He visited all 24 states, and near the end of that tour came to Loudoun County. One of the homes he visited was Temple Hall.

After World War II, the Washington, DC, area was growing fast and needed ever more electricity. In 1954 the Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) bought 500 acres along the Potomac River in Sterling, Virginia, to build a coal powered plant.

In 2010, Dr. William Orsinger, a long-time member of the Northern Virginia Bonsai Society (NVBS), donated his Bonsai collection to Meadowlark Botanical Gardens (Meadowlark).

In 2017, NVBS began caring for the trees and, in 2018, partnered with Meadowlark in the placement, design, and construction of the Bonsai Pavilion. Donations to build the pavilion were provided by Eric Yoshihashi and Rae Nuppenau. Members of NVBS loan their trees and provide daily care for all bonsai trees on display. Members of NVBS also serve as docents, explaining the art of Bonsai and answering visitor questions. 

During the Federal retreat at Ball’s Bluff, Lewis A. Bell, a free African American camp worker, may have been the first Black man to fire a gun in support of the Union Army.

According to the 1870 edition of History of Worcester in the War of the Rebellion, Bell worked for Colonel Milton Cogswell, 42nd New York Infantry Regiment, while other sources cite his involvement with a Massachusetts unit. Bell “supplied himself with arms, and loaded and fired with great spirit” before being taken to Richmond as a prisoner of war.

Henry Harris was descended from a for­merly enslaved man and woman freed by Robert Carter Ill in the early 1800s. In 1844 Alfred Ball of Prince William County sold Harris 15 acres located just north of today's 1-66 and Bull Run Regional Park. The 1850 census recorded Harris as a farmer and the "only person" living on his farm. The Slave Schedule of that census, however, listed the enslaved resi­dents of Henry's farm as of a woman of 35, a girl of 6 and boys of 4 and 2. They were his wife Jemima and their children.

This late 18th-century African American cemetery contains 91 burials of people who were likely free and enslaved. Members of the extended Harris family are buried here.

Robert Carter Ill was born in 1728 to one of the richest Colonial families of the time. His grandfather, Robert "King" Carter, owned 295,000 acres of land and hundreds of enslaved people. Young Carter inherited much of that wealth in 1732 when his father and grandfather died within months of each other. Most of Centreville and Manassas were part of Carter's Leo Plantation.