The Gargoyles Watching Over Culpeper

Front Porch

This Week in Culpeper

This week, Culpeper HQ is looking up, then heading back down to street level.

Our featured story started with a quick stop at Bloom & Berry, where Aaron Zimkowski asked us if we knew the story behind the gargoyles around downtown Culpeper.

We did not.

That sent us on a little roofline mystery along Main and Davis Streets, past older references, familiar storefronts, and up toward one Main Street rooftop creature we finally found watching over downtown.

Then we shift to Saturday morning at the Culpeper Downtown Farmers Market, where the story is less stone creature and more tomatoes, flowers, baked goods, familiar faces, wandering dogs, and one very good reason to get out before lunch.

Also inside: a gargoyle scavenger hunt, top things to do this week, an updated Dinner Club note, and a few ways to help us find the next local story hiding in plain sight.

Partner Spotlight

A Dinner Where Virginia History Gets a Place Setting

GATHER is bringing its first dinner to historic Salubria Manor, and this one is built for people who like their evenings with a little story, a little ceremony, and a very good reason to linger at the table.

Provision & Forage is a five-course dinner from Chef Frida Johansson, built around Virginia ingredients, thoughtful pairings, and the food stories early Virginians carried, discovered, cooked, and shared.

It is part dinner, part place-based storytelling, and part “Why don’t we do things like this more often?” evening.

Watch the short video introduction, then reserve your seat before the table fills.

Reserve Your Seat

Feature Story

The Gargoyle Watching Over Culpeper

We went into Bloom & Berry for bread, ground beef, cookies, and chips.

We came out looking for gargoyles.

That is not usually how grocery errands go, but downtown Culpeper has a way of slipping a story into your bag when you are not paying attention.

Malinda and I were talking with Aaron Zimkowski, one of Bloom & Berry’s co-owners, when he asked a question that stopped the conversation cold:

“Do you know the story behind the gargoyles?”

We did not.

So we went looking.

One reported spot came up empty.

But on Main Street, above the storefronts and daily traffic, we found one: wings raised, claws forward, staring down at Culpeper like it had been waiting for somebody to finally notice.

Once we saw it, downtown looked a little different.

Read the Rest of the Story

Did You Know?

Not Every Gargoyle Is Actually a Gargoyle

Did you know a true gargoyle has a job?

In architecture, a gargoyle is usually a carved figure that also works as a waterspout, sending rainwater away from a building. If it just sits there looking strange, dramatic, and mildly judgmental, it may technically be a grotesque.

That means Culpeper’s rooftop “gargoyle” may technically be a grotesque.

But we are not calling a town meeting over it.

If a little creature is perched above a downtown building looking like it knows something about your parking job, most of us are going to call it a gargoyle and keep walking.

Or better yet, stop walking and look up.

What to Do This Week

What to Do This Week in Culpeper

This week’s calendar has a little bit of everything: a live TV spotlight on Culpeper, a downtown wizard-themed workshop, gravel-bike grit, and a few good reasons to get out of the house before the weekend disappears on you.

Friday morning starts early with FOX 5 DC’s Culpeper Zip Trip, bringing a live broadcast, local highlights, family-friendly activities, music, artists, fitness demos, face painting, caricatures, and a little “look at us on TV” energy to Commerce Street from 7:30 to 11 AM.

Later Friday, Botanical Dwellings hosts a Wizarding Air Plant Terrarium Walk-In Workshop from 5 to 8 PM. Build a small magical-looking terrarium, lean into the downtown wizard energy, and leave with something that does not require a spellbook to keep alive.

For the outdoor crowd, Dirty Kitten Gravel Fest takes over Locust Hill Farm & Preserve in Rapidan on Saturday and Sunday with rides, challenges, clinics, demos, food, music, and a full weekend built around the gravel cycling community. Registration is required, so do not treat this one like a casual drop-in.

Try This Place

A Saturday Morning at the Culpeper Farmers Market

The Culpeper Downtown Farmers Market is one of the easiest ways to see Culpeper being Culpeper: produce, flowers, baked goods, familiar faces, wandering dogs, and Saturday morning conversations that last longer than expected.

Read the Full Story

Put This on Your Radar

Take the Gargoyle Scavenger Hunt

Next time you are downtown, try this: stand still, step back from the storefronts, and look up.

Start around Main Street. Look above the signs, awnings, second-floor windows, roof corners, and old brickwork. Give the buildings a few extra seconds to introduce themselves.

You may spot the Main Street gargoyle right away.

You may miss it on the first pass and catch it on the way back to your car.

That is part of the fun.

Older references suggest Culpeper has had more rooftop creatures over the years, but the one we found is enough to change the way you see the block.

The point is not to count every creature like someone auditing winged livestock.

The point is to let downtown surprise you.

Culpeper has a second downtown above the one most of us see every day.

This week, go find it.

Read the Gargoyle Story

Culpeper Dinner Club

Help Us Build the Next Dinner Club Table

Our first Culpeper HQ Dinner Club date has now passed, and we made the decision to postpone rather than force an evening before we had enough people to create the kind of thoughtful, well-matched tables we have in mind.

The idea has not changed.

You complete a short questionnaire, we use your answers to help place you at a small table with people from around Culpeper, and everyone meets for dinner at a local restaurant revealed shortly before the event.

No networking presentation.

No sales pitch.

No pressure to arrive with your own group.

The goal is simple: make it easier for local people to meet around an actual table instead of only passing one another in stores, parking lots, Facebook groups, and crowded community events.

Now that the original date is behind us, we are building the interest list first. Once enough people have joined, we will announce the next date and send details to everyone on the list.

Joining now does not lock you into an unknown evening. It helps us know when the table is ready.

Culpeper HQ is supposed to help people know more than what is happening around town.

We want it to help more people know one another, too.

Join the Dinner Club List

Who Should We Feature in Upcoming Editions?

Culpeper is full of people whose stories deserve more attention.

Maybe it is a business owner who has quietly served the community for decades. A volunteer who never asks for recognition. An artist, musician, coach, teacher, craftsperson, neighbor, collector, cook, historian, farmer, vendor, or local character who makes this area more interesting.

Maybe they know the story behind something the rest of us keep walking past.

Maybe they are the reason a local place feels like itself.

Either way, tell us who Culpeper should know.

You do not need to write the story for us. Just point us toward the right person and tell us what makes them worth meeting.

Recommend Someone to Feature

Send Us the Good Stuff

Have an event, local tip, story idea, birthday shoutout, unusual bit of history, new business, hidden menu item, neighborhood legend, market vendor, rooftop creature, or pet we should feature?

Send it our way.

Culpeper HQ works best when readers point us toward the people and places we would never discover from a press release or calendar listing.

Maybe someone quietly deserves recognition. Maybe a longtime business has a story no one has told. Maybe your neighbor makes something remarkable in a garage, kitchen, workshop, garden, or spare room.

We are looking for the details that make Culpeper feel like Culpeper.

You do not need to write the story for us. Just point us in the right direction and tell us why it matters.

Send Us a Tip or Story Idea

Culpeper HQ

Until Next Wednesday

Culpeper HQ is your weekly guide to who to know and what to do in Culpeper.

This week’s issue is a reminder that familiar places can still surprise us. Sometimes the story is above the storefront. Sometimes it is under a farmers market tent. Sometimes it begins with a simple question.

So look up. Walk slowly. Talk to the people behind the counters and under the tents. Follow the odd little detail. That is where the good stuff usually starts.

And before we go, meet Lila—our German Shepherd and unofficial Culpeper HQ lifeguard, taking summer one slow float at a time.

If you enjoyed this issue, forward it to someone who could use a fresh look at Culpeper. We’ll be back next Wednesday with more local discoveries.

With ❤️ from Culpeper — Malinda, Tim (& Lila)