Explore a Park: Ossian Hall Park
This article is part of our series on parks in the Annandale/Mason District area. See other stories in the series in the Parks tab.
Ossian Hall Park, located at 7900 Heritage Drive next to Annandale High School, offers sports fields for AHS athletes and the community, free outdoor concerts in the summer, and playgrounds for kids.
At 22.7 acres, this park is one of the few green spaces available for recreation in this part of densely populated Annandale.
Features: Ossian Hall Park has a synthetic turf field for soccer and football with bleachers; two baseball diamonds with bleachers, including one field used by the Annandale High School softball team; a plaza for outdoor entertainment; a playground, a tot lot, a paved trail, and porta-potties.
During the warmer months, the park hosts multicultural shows on Saturday evenings as part of the Spotlight by Starlight concert series. The 2022 season featured performers from Indonesia, Peru, Bavaria, Vietnam, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Togo, Bolivia, and Ireland. There is no seating, so spectators bring chairs or blankets.
Access: There’s a large parking lot on Four Year Run, which is also used by Annandale students.
Pedestrians can access the park from the sidewalk on Heritage Drive and from a trail at the end of Roanoke Avenue.
There’s a trail from the park leading to Annandale Terrace Elementary School, although a fence blocks access. A concrete sidewalk along the fence and unpaved trails provide access to the park from the Wedgewood Apartments.
Improvements: The park was renovated in 2010. The project added the stone plaza and performance space, stone retaining walls, a 120-space lighted parking lot, trails, new playground equipment, and an underground stormwater management system.
A lighted multi-use field with artificial turf replaced the tennis courts.
History: The Park Authority’s Master Plan for Ossian Hall Park, completed in 1973 (and revised in 2004), outlines the history of the site.
Related story: Explore a Park – Ecological restoration and history at Fitzhugh Park in Annandale
The park was built on land that was part of an 18th-century plantation owned by the Fitzhugh family. The park is just three-quarters of a mile from the former manor house, called Ossian Hall. That home deteriorated and sat empty and vandalized for years.
Ossian Hall was burned down in 1959 during a training exercise for the Annandale Fire Department. That site, on Regina Drive, was later developed with single-family homes.
The property had changed hands several times by the time Henry William Sommers purchased a 250-acre parcel in 1856. After Sommers died in 1867, his estate was divided among his widow and children.
A 55-acre plot at the eastern end of the property was allotted to Sommers’ married daughter, Mary Windsbecker. After the Windsbeckers sold the land in 1904, it changed hands again several times.
The Park Authority acquired a 2.5-acre parcel in 1962 from the McGregor Carbon Forms Co. and a 20.2-acre parcel in 1963 from a private citizen.
