The Rest Of Middleburg

Images of the big variety of a small town

I wrote about Middleburg, Virginia recently, with some history of the town, my impressions of it, and some photos. I want to share more of my photos here and some other tidbits.

Middleburg is an old-money town in Loudoun County, famous for fox hunting and horse racing. It’s very expensive to live there or stay at one of the handful of B&Bs or the big Salamander country resort. It’s interesting to me how a place that looks like Middleburg, in a lot of less affluent metros, would be kind of run-down and hollowed out, one of those places you drive through and think how nice it must have looked 50 years ago.

This is one reason I’m not overly negative about the concentration of wealth in the D.C. area. (Which, because of government and the associated official corruption of the contractors and all that stuff is kind of artificial). But it means that we get some very nicely preserved places that all that money supports.

Here’s an article about a local photographer who died a couple of years ago, whose photos of Middleburg life span decades. In between references to the Safeway, Esso, and a burger joint, there’s a bit about a snowy hunt and an Italian car rally. Even a little place like this contains multitudes.

By the way, there is at least one cheap meal to be had in Middleburg: this longstanding deli, which nearly closed last year but managed to find a buyer, is pretty good!

The grand old bank is now an oyster bar. We were going to eat here for dinner back in early March of 2020, on the very last daytrip we took before the pandemic lockdowns hit. The place was packed and we couldn’t get a seat, and maybe that was for the better. Although I wouldn’t have minded opening quarantine with a plate of oysters.

I mentioned the three-dimensionality of old-fashioned towns in the original piece. What I mean is stuff like this. Here’s a cool old couple of buildings, one of them set back from the street to make a patio which you reach by climbing down half a flight of stairs. It feels like a little semi-secret place, yet just barely off the main drag.

I also love these sorts of pictures you can get walking along an urban street:

Then there are the tiny buildings—buildings where you can just almost touch the roof. They’re like child’s imaginary castles, so much bigger on the inside than they look. Modern suburbia does not offer this sort of whimsy, these little jumpstarts for imagination.

I like these basement-level public businesses too:

There’s just so much texture and character, like you’re exploring a place that is built at a higher, finer resolution.

And just seeing the edge of town, and looking out at the country:

Back when I was a student at a little liberal arts college, a couple of friends and I used to call the stone wall around most of campus “the edge of the world.” That’s kind of how you feel here.

It’s strange that both very little money and a lot of money can preserve this, in a sense. But I don’t care too much why this is here. I just like that it is.

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Related Reading:

Occoquan, Virginia’s Embrace of Old and New

300 People and History in Clifton, VA

The Rest of Somerville, NJ: Part 2

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