What is the oldest tree in Leesburg?

The Leesburg Heritage Tree, a white oak beside the Rust Farm House in Ida Lee Park. The town's Tree Commission says it is well over 250 years old and grew from seed before Leesburg was founded in 1758; no ring count has been published.

Where are Leesburg's biggest trees?

Four of Loudoun County's registered big trees stand on the grounds of Saint John the Apostle Catholic Church off Church Street NE, within about a hundred metres of each other. The silver linden there, 246 inches round, is the county's Virginia champion for its species. The Shumard oak in Algonkian Regional Park, 109 feet tall, is the tallest on our Leesburg map.

Are Leesburg's remarkable trees free to visit?

Most are. Ida Lee Park is a free town park, the Morven Park grounds are free to walk from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, and the county lists the Saint John the Apostle trees as visible from public property, though it is worth checking for services or funerals before walking onto the church grounds. Algonkian Regional Park may charge for parking at busy times. The Oatlands ginkgo, south of town, stands in the ticketed grounds of Oatlands Historic House and Gardens.

Can I see Leesburg's trees on foot?

The Saint John the Apostle trees and the Heritage Tree in Ida Lee Park are under a kilometre apart in town, and a Loudoun County Transit stop at Union Street and King Street is a few minutes from the church. Morven Park is about 2 km north-west, and Algonkian Regional Park in Sterling is about 25 to 30 minutes east by car.

United States

Ancient Trees in Leesburg

Leesburg's big trees are measured, not legendary. Loudoun County remeasured its Big Tree Registry in 2025, and four of its trees stand within a hundred metres of each other on the grounds of Saint John the Apostle Church in the old town. Among them are a silver linden 6.25 metres round and an Atlantic white cedar, both Virginia champions, and a Japanese chestnut the experts took a while to name. Beyond them are a white oak the town says is older than Leesburg itself, a tulip tree nearly 30 metres tall at Morven Park, and a Shumard oak in Sterling.

All 7 trees

Japanese Chestnut at Saint John the Apostle

Japanese Chestnut

For a while nobody could agree what this tree was. Nominated to Virginia Tech's big-tree database in 2015, it was first listed as a European chestnut. The American Chestnut Foundation took a closer look and concluded it was a Japanese chestnut, partly because it is very old and shows no sign of chestnut blight, the disease that wiped out the American chestnut and that Asian chestnuts largely shrug off. It grows on the grounds of Saint John the Apostle Catholic Church in Leesburg, just north of a spring house at a sharp turn of Church Street. In 2015 its trunk was 161 inches round. When the Loudoun County forester remeasured it in 2025 it had reached 171 inches, about 4.3 metres, with a height of 54 feet (16.5 metres) and a crown 55 feet across. That is a tree as wide as it is tall. Whether it is a state champion depends on whom you ask. The county's 2025 list marks it as Virginia's champion Japanese chestnut. The Virginia Tech record says it is not. The two sources disagree, and neither explains why. It has company. A shellbark hickory stands about seven metres away, and two more county-registered trees, a silver linden and an Atlantic white cedar, are within a hundred metres on the same grounds. No source dates any of them. If you know when the chestnut was planted, or who brought it to Leesburg, tell us.

Atlantic White Cedar at Saint John the Apostle

Atlantic White Cedar

Virginia's champion Atlantic white cedar does not grow in a swamp. It grows on a church lawn in Leesburg, far inland from the coastal wetlands where its species belongs. Atlantic white cedar is a tree of the Atlantic coastal plain, a narrow evergreen of bogs and swampy ground along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. This one stands on the grounds of Saint John the Apostle Catholic Church, on Church Street NE, and the Loudoun County Big Tree Registry measured it in 2025 at 58 feet tall (17.7 metres), with a trunk 125 inches round (about 3.2 metres) and a crown only 31 feet across. That slim shape is typical of the species. Its score of 191 points puts it at the top of Virginia's list for its kind, according to the county. How it got here is a mystery. No source we have found says who planted it or when, and nobody has dated it. A swamp cedar on a Piedmont church lawn was almost certainly planted, and the parish or the town may remember by whom. If you know, tell us. It is one of four registered trees on these grounds, all within about a hundred metres of each other. The others are a Japanese chestnut, a shellbark hickory and a silver linden that is itself a Virginia champion. The cedar is the evergreen among them, standing about 45 metres east of the chestnut.

Silver Linden at Saint John the Apostle

Silver Lime

The widest trunk on the grounds of Saint John the Apostle Catholic Church belongs to a tree from the other side of the Atlantic. This silver linden measures 246 inches round, about 6.25 metres, and the Loudoun County Big Tree Registry's 2025 list marks it as Virginia's champion of its species. That is a remarkable girth for any linden. Silver linden is native to south-eastern Europe and western Asia, a tree planted in American towns for its shade and its leaves, dark green above and silvery white beneath, so the crown flickers pale when the wind turns them. The county measured this one at 69 feet tall (21 metres), with a crown 61 feet across, for a total of 330 points. Of the four registered trees on these grounds, it has the widest trunk by a long way. The Japanese chestnut nearby is about 4.3 metres round. Nobody seems to have written down when it went in. The county gives no age and no planting date, and no other source we know of does. A linden this broad in a churchyard is the kind of tree a parish photograph or a town history might show as a sapling. If you have one, or know the story, tell us. The tree stands towards the north of the church grounds off Church Street NE, a few minutes' walk from King Street in the middle of town. Check for services or funerals before walking in.

Shellbark Hickory at Saint John the Apostle

Shellbark Hickory

Seven metres apart on the grounds of Saint John the Apostle Catholic Church stand two trees that could hardly be built more differently. One is a Japanese chestnut, short and broad. The other is this shellbark hickory, and at 98 feet (29.9 metres) it is almost twice as tall, the tallest of the four county-registered trees on the site. The Loudoun County Big Tree Registry's 2025 measurements give it a trunk 113 inches round, about 2.9 metres, and a crown 73 feet across, for 229 points. It is not a state champion, and it does not need to be. Shellbark hickory is a native of river bottoms and rich lowland woods in the eastern United States, known for the largest nuts of any hickory and for bark that comes away in long, loose plates. Together with the chestnut it makes one stop, and you can stand between the two and see both. The silver linden and the Atlantic white cedar complete the set within about a hundred metres. No source gives this hickory an age or a planting date, and nobody seems to know whether it was planted at all. If you know, tell us. Check for services or funerals before walking onto the grounds.

Tulip Poplar at Morven Park

Tulip Tree

Ninety-seven feet is about the height of a nine-storey building, and that is how tall the Loudoun County Big Tree Registry measured this tulip tree near the mansion at Morven Park in 2025. In metres, 29.6. Its trunk is 154 inches round, about 3.9 metres, and its crown spreads 68 feet, for a total of 268 points. Morven Park is a thousand-acre estate on the north-western edge of Leesburg, once the home of Westmoreland Davis, the Virginia governor who bought it in 1903. His wife Marguerite laid out the formal boxwood gardens in 1930. Mansion tours are ticketed, but the grounds are free to walk every day from seven in the morning until six in the evening. What the paperwork does not tell us is how old the tree is. The Davises' arrival in 1903 and the 1930 gardens date the estate's later history, not this trunk, and no source we have seen gives a planting date or an age. A tulip tree this size could predate both, or not. Nobody knows. If you do, tell us. The county's pin places the tree in the mansion area, but on an estate this size it is approximate, so look for a big tulip tree near the house rather than trusting the dot to the metre. Tulip trees are easy to tell apart from the rest by their square-ended leaves, shaped like the outline of a tulip.

Autumn colour

Oatlands Ginkgo

Ginkgo · close to 200 years

The man who looks after Oatlands' trees calls this the third largest ginkgo in the United States. The Loudoun County Big Tree Registry's 2025 measurements make the claim easy to believe, with 103 feet in height (31.4 metres), a trunk 201 inches round (about 5.1 metres), and a crown 69 feet across, for 321 points. It grows behind the mansion at Oatlands, a historic house and garden south of Leesburg on Route 15. Jim Donegan, the estate's tree contractor, told Middleburg Life it is close to 200 years old. That is an arborist's estimate, and no ring count or planting record has been published to back it, so it stands as his judgement rather than a date. The national ranking is his too. The ginkgo is the only living species of a lineage older than the dinosaurs, and it shrugs off pests and pollution in a way that has made it a favourite of city streets. This one has had room and time instead. Its neighbours at Oatlands include an American boxwood canopy and yews the same article puts at around 200 years. In November the whole crown turns butter yellow and then drops in a day or two, which is the moment to come. The gardens and grounds are open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. with a ticket. The county's 2025 measurement is the latest record of it; if you have seen it since, tell us it still stands.

Leesburg Heritage Tree

White Oak · 250 years

Leesburg's own Tree Commission says this white oak grew from an acorn before there was a Leesburg. The town was founded in 1758, and the commission's Tree Walk of Historic Leesburg calls its Heritage Tree a fine specimen of white oak well over 250 years old. It stands in Ida Lee Park, next to the Rust Farm House, a farmhouse from around 1859 at 50 Ida Lee Drive NW. If the town's figure is right, the oak was about a century old when the house went up beside it. The farmhouse now stands by the park's festival field. Take the age as the town's statement. The leaflet gives no ring count or measurement behind it, and we have found no published girth for the tree. The town's own America 250 page adds that the park once held several mature white oaks, and in May 2026 the town planted a Mount Vernon chestnut oak sapling beside the farmhouse. That sapling is not the Heritage Tree, so look past it for the old trunk. One more honest caveat. The leaflet is undated, and nobody we can cite has confirmed the oak since. A local newspaper reported in January 2026 that the town's tree inventory had measured a massive white oak in Ida Lee Park, which may or may not be this one. If you have been to the farmhouse lately, or know its girth, tell us.

A day trip away

Sterling / Lowes Island, 18 km east

Shumard Oak at Algonkian Regional Park

Shumard Oak · 200 years

Loudoun County counts this Shumard oak among the largest trees in the whole county, and it stands not in a town square but out on the trails of Algonkian Regional Park, near Sugarland Run in Sterling. The county's caption gives it as 109 feet high, 184 inches round the trunk and about 200 years old. The 2025 registry figures put numbers on the rest. The trunk is about 4.7 metres round, the tree 33.2 metres tall, and the crown spreads 83 feet, for 313.75 points. An older figure, quoted by The Nature Conservancy's Virginia public lands page, gave it 112 feet and 176 inches. Measurements drift between surveys, and the county's are the latest. Shumard oak is a red oak of southern bottomlands and stream banks, a big, fast tree with deeply cut, bristle-tipped leaves. The 200-year figure is the county's estimate, and it does not say how it was reached, so treat it as a forester's judgement rather than a date. If it holds, the oak was a sapling in the early 1800s. This is the far outlier on the Leesburg page. Sterling is about 20 kilometres east of downtown, 25 to 30 minutes by car on Route 7, with no useful bus. Algonkian is a NOVA Parks park and may charge for parking at busy times, so check before you go.

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Frequently asked

What is the oldest tree in Leesburg?: The Leesburg Heritage Tree, a white oak beside the Rust Farm House in Ida Lee Park. The town's Tree Commission says it is well over 250 years old and grew from seed before Leesburg was founded in 1758; no ring count has been published.
Where are Leesburg's biggest trees?: Four of Loudoun County's registered big trees stand on the grounds of Saint John the Apostle Catholic Church off Church Street NE, within about a hundred metres of each other. The silver linden there, 246 inches round, is the county's Virginia champion for its species. The Shumard oak in Algonkian Regional Park, 109 feet tall, is the tallest on our Leesburg map.
Are Leesburg's remarkable trees free to visit?: Most are. Ida Lee Park is a free town park, the Morven Park grounds are free to walk from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily, and the county lists the Saint John the Apostle trees as visible from public property, though it is worth checking for services or funerals before walking onto the church grounds. Algonkian Regional Park may charge for parking at busy times. The Oatlands ginkgo, south of town, stands in the ticketed grounds of Oatlands Historic House and Gardens.
Can I see Leesburg's trees on foot?: The Saint John the Apostle trees and the Heritage Tree in Ida Lee Park are under a kilometre apart in town, and a Loudoun County Transit stop at Union Street and King Street is a few minutes from the church. Morven Park is about 2 km north-west, and Algonkian Regional Park in Sterling is about 25 to 30 minutes east by car.
More like this: One of these trees also appears in Autumn Worth the Trip.
Ancient trees in nearby cities: Washington DC · Gettysburg · Baltimore · Wye Mills, Maryland · Wilmington, Delaware · Chadds Ford · Philadelphia · Pittsburgh · Every city on the map

Shumard Oak at Algonkian Regional Park

Species

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