The Bush Meeting Tabernacle that stands in a wooded area known as Dillon’s Woods just south of the main business district in the town of Purcellville, Loudoun County, is significant as a remarkable surviving artifact of social history in Northern Virginia. With its beginnings reaching back to 1878 with the formation of the Prohibition and Evangelical Association of Loudoun County, the present building constructed in 1903 symbolizes an enduring institution that not only recalls the era of prohibition but also the position of the Bush Meeting and its surrounding grounds in the social history of Purcellville. Purportedly the largest single building to accommodate the public in Loudoun County before the construction of Dulles Airport, the Bush Meeting Tabernacle is a contributing resource in the Purcellville Historic District, but is considered sufficiently significant on its own to be nominated individually to the National Register. It is one of only three surviving structures surveyed in the state built to accommodate summertime religious and reform revivals and the only structure identified that was not related solely to a single religious denomination. The monumental, one-story, eight-sided auditorium, built to accommodate up to 3,000 people, is set in a large park-like area and offered optimal public space for public gatherings, speeches, religious revivals, fairs and sporting events for a town that thrived after the arrival of the railroad in the 1870s. The Bush Meeting Tabernacle also became a primary subject for several personal memoirs that provide lively descriptions of activities at the Bush Meeting ground over its history. Notable speakers included William Jennings Bryan and well known evangelist, “Billy” Sunday. Beginning in 1939, following the decline in its use as an evangelical meeting place, it served as a popular public skating rink and community center. The Bush Meeting House and grounds are individually eligible for the National Register on a state level of significance under Criterion A for religion, recreation, and social history and under Criterion C for architecture. Its significance at a state level is substantiated by its scale and configuration and the fact that no other building of this size and function, not directly associated with a single religious denomination, has been identified in Virginia. Criteria consideration A applies to this property since it was originally used for religious purposes, but its functions reached far beyond any religious activities for all of its period of significance. The period of significance is from 1903 with the actual construction of the Tabernacle building to 1960, when it was still in use for recreational purposes.
The building was extensively renovated in 2010 and is now used as a roller rink and teen center.