Occupying a long, narrow valley west of Gordonsville in Orange County, Rocklands boasts a porticoed Georgian Revival mansion set amid spacious grounds and unusually scenic fields and pastures that once were the scene of considerable Civil War activity. The mansion was erected in 1905-07 for Thomas Atkinson of Richmond on the site of a mid-19th-century residence of Richard Barton Haxall of the Richmond milling family. Its architect has not been determined, but William Lawrence Bottomley was responsible for an extensive remodeling undertaken in the 1930s at which time the high basement was removed and the house lowered in order to give it a more direct relationship with the landscape. Bottomley also designed service buildings based on those at Upper Bremo in Fluvanna County. The work was undertaken by Mrs. Doris Neale, who also commissioned landscape architect Umberto Innocenti to design the formal gardens.  The Rocklands property contributes to the Madison-Barbour Rural Historic District.