Directions: From the Highway 7 (Harry Byrd Hwy) and Highway 340 (Lord Fairfax Hwy) intersection in Berryville, Virginia, proceed northeast on Highway 340 for 2.5 miles to Clifton Road. Then proceed north for 1/3 of a mile to the farm entrance.
Property Address:
518 Clifton Farm Ln.
Berryville, VA 22611
Clifton is located in Clarke County Virginia, three miles north of Berryville, just 60 miles west of Washington, D.C. but worlds away from the traffic jams and high-rise buildings. Clarke County is privileged by its spectacular location. Nestled in the northern Shenandoah Valley, protected between the Blue Ridge Mountains and Allegheny Ridge, with the magnificent Shenandoah River running through it. It is known as an oasis to Washington, D.C. and Northern Virginia residents. Clarke County also boasts a varied population of businesses, which bring a wealth of historical, cultural, and social diversity, all within its borders.
Area Attractions and Amenities:
- Twin Oaks Tavern Winery - 12.3 Miles
- Veramar Winery - 9 Miles
- Appalachian Trail - 10.5 Miles
- Shenandoah River - 8.5 Miles
- Blue Ridge Hunt Territory
- Historic Harpers Ferry - 18 Miles
- Washington D.C. - 60 Miles
- Dulles International Airport - 41 Miles
Clifton has played a significant role in American history for over two hundred years, and its fame derives from its close association with George Washington, who walked its rolling fields as a youth in the 18th century. Clifton was a Washington family tract, and the current owners are only the fourth family to have ever owned this historic property. Warner Washington Jr. lived in a pre-Revolutionary house on the site, which he sold to Griffin Taylor, the second family of ownership, in 1795. In 1818, Tayler left Clifton to his daughter Sarah and her husband David Hume Allen, who completed the Georgian stucco-over brick house in 1834.
Historian Samuel Kercheval described Clifton as the following in the mid 1830s: “In the county of Clarke, David Hume Allen, Esq., has lately erected a brick dwelling on a beautiful eminence, from which there is a most enchanting view of the Blue Ridge and adjacent country. It is sixty five feet by fifty, with a splendid portico, supported by a beautiful colonnade 25 feet high of solid pine pillars… Mr. Allen is pretty extensively engaged in the stock way. A few years ago, he at one time owned one hundred and twenty head of horses, and a large stock of improved black cattle...”
Clifton figured prominently in the history of both our nation and the State of Virginia. Senators and governors, plantation owners, musicians and artists, and horseman and cattlemen gathered at the mansion house to share Clifton’s warm hospitality. President Tyler visited, and in his honor, a new set of Clifton china was fashioned. Clifton continued as a place of importance to both combatants during the Civil War with Confederate Stonewall Jackson quartering his calvary in the Barracks Barn and the mansion house serving as headquarters for General John Mosby’s main Confederate army in August 1864 and later as Union General Phil Sheridan directed maneuvers in the northern Shenandoah from the farm, where he positioned his main army, writing in his memoirs of the Clifton-Berryville advance.
Across generations the name “Clifton” has been associated with a tradition of excellence in architecture, agriculture, and stewardship of the land and the time has come for a new chapter of ownership in the rich Clifton history to begin.