The stately Georgian mansion known as Williams Ordinary is Virginia’s only surviving colonial building employing header-bond brickwork. Header bond was popular for finer quality 18th-century buildings in England and is found on several mansions in Annapolis, Md., but it was rarely used elsewhere in the colonies. It is likely that the Williams Ordinary building is the work of Maryland masons. The formality of its design is emphasized by its five-bay façade, hipped roof, stone quoins, keystone lintels, and rusticated doorway. The building, also known as the Old Hotel and Love’s Tavern, has long been a prominent landmark in the Prince William County town of Dumfries, on the old King’s Highway (now the busy U.S. Route 1). The Williams Ordinary’s early history is obscure, but it probably was constructed in the 1760s, and may originally have been a prosperous merchant’s house. George Williams was the proprietor of an ordinary here as early as 1788.
Many properties listed in the registers are private dwellings and are not open to the public, however many are visible from the public right-of-way. Please be respectful of owner privacy.
Abbreviations:
VLR: Virginia Landmarks Register
NPS: National Park Service
NRHP: National Register of Historic Places
NHL: National Historic Landmark
Programs
DHR has secured permanent legal protection for over 700 historic places - including 15,000 acres of battlefield lands
DHR has erected 2,532 highway markers in every county and city across Virginia
DHR has registered more than 3,317 individual resources and 613 historic districts
DHR has engaged over 450 students in 3 highway marker contests
DHR has stimulated more than $4.2 billion dollars in private investments related to historic tax credit incentives, revitalizing communities of all sizes throughout Virginia