Aldie Mill Historic District
1804 home of Charles Fenton Mercer

Charles Fenton Mercer, military officer, legislator, and advocate for the colonization of African Americans, settled here in 1804. He named his property for Aldie Castle, his Scottish ancestral home.

The large merchant mill, constructed in 1807 by Mercer's partner William Cooke, survives as one of the best outfitted early mills in the state. The three-part complex includes what was a plaster mill at one end and a store at the other. The mill's twin overshot Fitz wheels, installed in 1900, are a unique surviving pair in Virginia. Behind the mill is the miller's house. Completing the grouping is an early stone bridge across Little River.

The mills at Aldie consisted of the largest grist mill in Loudoun County which sent flour to Europe as well as the east coast of the United States. A small country mill was used by local farmers to grind grain. The merchant mill which is open for grinding demonstrations on weekends is the only surviving mill powered by twin overshot wheels in Virginia. The mill was extremely significant during the Civil War providing grain for both soldiers and horses for the Confederate and Federal troops.

The mill operated into the 1970s. Mr. and Mrs. James Edward Douglas, whose family had owned and operated the mill continuously for six generations since 1834, donated it to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation in 1981. The Virginia Outdoors Foundation has restored the mill as an operating example of an early-19th-century wheat and corn mill.

Overlooking the mill is the large Federal house, built by Mercer in 1810 as his residence. Mercer referred to it as Aldie Manor and today it is known as the Mercer House.