GREENWAY COURT
White Post vicinity, Clarke County
Built before 1760; abandoned c. 1830
Photograph: Virginia Historical Society
At Greenway Court, in what was then the backwoods, Thomas, sixth Baron Fairfax of Cameron, positioned himself to
administer effectively the rent and sale of his five-million-acre inheritance, the Northern Neck proprietary. He changed to
frontier garb and became a recluse. The principal building at Greenway Court was sixty feet long and included a banquet
hall. Two later owners built lateral additions of twenty feet each, so that 19th-century visitors described a long structure.
Apparently this "house"was single-pile (one room deep) but exceptionally deep; Fairfax reportedly used it for the
entertainment of guests while he himself lived nearby in a simple wood-frame cabin. The cabin was one of several
outbuildings almost randomly placed around the large grassy court from which the complex derived its name. The
only buildings that survive today are a limestone land office in which Lord Fairfax transacted his business and a plank
storage building.
Next: Augusta County Courthouse
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