Aberdeen is an imposing brick temple-form mansion with a side-hall plan in which the hall runs across the front of the building. The house is remarkably well preserved and contains striking late Georgian interiors. It is the centerpiece of the rural estate of Thomas Cocke, who was the ward, friend, and neighbor of Edmund Ruffin. Ruffin and Cocke both experimented with marl to restore worn-out soils. Their observations at Aberdeen and other nearby sites became the basis for Ruffin’s seminal writings on agricultural practices—practices that led to the rejuvenation of agriculture in much of Virginia in the antebellum era. The flat fields of Aberdeen are still farmed today.