Discover Ridgeway

Ridgeway offers several themes to consider when planning a trip: trails and nature, sports facilities, local history, and food and drink. If you’re looking for a hotel, these differences can help you choose the focus of your stay.

Nature and outdoor activities

Fisher Farm Park in Ridgeway has a hiking trail and wooded areas. Two picnic shelters and grill areas are also available. The park is located along the Leisure Trail. The facilities also include two baseball or softball fields.

Lee Ford Camp also brings together several aspects of outdoor recreation. The camp covers 17 acres, and its lake covers 1.5 acres. The grounds also include a climbing and rappelling tower and a high ropes course.

The Richard P. Gravely, Jr. Nature Preserve is on a different scale: the park covers 75 acres and is located along the Smith River. At 75 acres, the preserve is considerably larger than Lee Ford Camp, which covers 17 acres. The camp’s lake covers 1.5 acres and is smaller than the camp itself.

History and local stories

Lee Ford Camp was established in memory of Lee Ford, who lost his life in service to his country during World War II. This memorial purpose gives the camp’s name a specific historical significance. Those interested in local remembrance will find a different perspective here than in the site’s sports and recreational offerings: the focus is on the person the camp commemorates.

The Jones Cliff Trail offers a self-guided tour of the history of tobacco farming in the early 20th century. The tour also covers the Burgess family plantation in the 19th century. On your walk, you can learn about the site’s agricultural past. Lee Ford Camp has been in operation since the early 1950s and was transferred to ANCHOR by the Martinsville Kiwanis Club in 1999. Heck and Mattie Ford had donated the land in memory of their son.

Food, drink and sports

Smith River Spirits offers distillery tours and free tastings. Its offerings also include Apple Black, a line of apple brandy. The product name is a play on the name of co-founder Alan Black, an attorney from Patrick County.

For outdoor sports, Ridgeway’s outdoor recreation facility has areas for basketball, pickleball, street soccer and street hockey. The facility was reported as newly opened in May 2026. If you plan to visit, check the latest access information in advance.

These options offer several different ways to plan a stay: nature and picnics at Fisher Farm Park, the commemorative history and recreational facilities of Lee Ford Camp, the larger park area along the Smith River, a self-guided tour of agricultural history, and distillery tours and sports facilities.

For the broader travel overview: Henry County.