With its lazy pond reflecting the informal manor house and its long front porch, Rich Bottom Farm preserves a scene of quietude and old-fashioned ways. The earliest part of the house, a fieldstone structure, was built in 1780 for Samuel Purcell, a grain farmer and mill owner. It was soon enlarged with a stone section of equal size, and further expanded in 1820 with a three-bay brick section. Three of the rooms in the stone portion have exposed ceiling joists with beaded edges. Except for the 1890s porch, the house has changed little since the 1820s. Adding to the picture of domesticity are two early stone outbuildings, a springhouse and a smokehouse. The Loudoun County property remained in the Purcell family until the 1940s. The nearby village that grew up around the store operated by Samuel Purcell’s offspring was named Purcellville in 1852.