Sponsor: The Winchester-Clarke Garden Club and The Little Garden Club of Winchester

Tickets: $25; single-site, $15; ages 6-12, half-price

Info: (540) 662-7898; www.VAGardenweek.org

Lunches: Saturday only; boxed, $13; Blandy Farm library, 400 Blandy Farm Lane, Boyce. Reservations by April 13.

Info: Mary Beth Wood, (540) 662-5899

The rolling countryside near the Blue Ridge Mountains was settled after the American Revolution by prominent Tidewater families. After the Civil War, agricultural emphasis shifted from wheat to fruit to big apple orchards.

Tour highlights:

Huntingdon, 500 W. Huntingdon Lane, Boyce (Mr. and Mrs. Charles H. Schutte, owners), a cattle farm with house built in 1830 to 1831, still has original shutters, hardware, woodwork and floors. A wing was added in 1845 and the kitchen has been remodeled.

Long Branch, 830 Long Branch Lane, Millwood (The Harry Z. Isaacs Foundation, owner), a Federal brick residence, was rescued in 1986 from near-dereliction. The interior was restored, a west wing was added to balance the one on the east and the house was filled with 18thand early19th-century furniture collected in England and the United States.

Foxcote, 2109 Red Gate Road, White Post (Mr. and Mrs. Michael Hoffman, owners), built in the early 1990s as a cozy English cottage, has been enlarged by the current owners with a glass-walled dining room with Blue Ridge vistas. A new barn features an equine shower, laundry, tap room and grooming stalls.

Construction on Red Gate, 914 Red Gate Road, (Mr. and Mrs. Edward T. Wilson, owners), began as early as 1788, with changes made after 1833 and again in 1933. The owners have concentrated on restoring and refurbishing the house and grounds. Collections of paintings make the home almost a museum experience.

*Outbuildings at Huntingdon include a restored 1830 smokehouse and icehouse.