Although significant homes and estates, neither could compete with the massive acreage Ravensworth had for planting, or forests for timber.

The two other Fitzhugh manor homes were Ossian Hall off Braddock and Ravensworth Roads, built in 1783, and Oak Hill off Wakefield Chapel Road, built in 1790. William Fitzhugh, the first of the family in the Virginia Colony, was most likely a minor member of this Yorkshire family. The family seat was Ravensworth Castle.” (1) Col. The title passed through the male line until the death of the seventh baron, George FitzHugh, in 1513 when it became abeyant between his great-aunts Alice, Lady Fiennes and Elizabeth, Lady Parr, and to this day their descendants. It was created in 1321 for Sir Henry FitzHugh. “Baron FitzHugh, of Ravensworth, is an abeyant title in the Peerage of England. The plantation was named in honor of the Fitzhugh ancestral home, Ravensworth, in the North Riding area of Yorkshire, England. The Ravensworth manor house was located in what is now the Ravensworth Shopping Center, and was the largest of the three 18th century manors built by the Fitzhugh family. (The entire land grant ran through, what is now, part of Falls Church to Pohink Church and from the present Fairfax Court House almost to Alexandria.)

Of all the colonial land grants in Fairfax County, Ravensworth was, by far, the largest at 24,112 acres or 37.7 square miles.

The History of Veggies by Mary Lee