Historic Rugby
National Register Historic District · Rugby, Tennessee
A village on the Cumberland Plateau founded in 1880 by the English author Thomas Hughes as a cooperative colony for the younger sons of British gentry — men with education, no inheritance and no trade — who were meant to farm it and largely did not. The experiment failed within a decade, but about twenty of the original buildings survive, including a church with its 1849 rosewood organ still playing and a public library whose seven thousand volumes have sat on the shelves since the 1880s.
5517 Rugby Highway, Rugby, Tennessee, 37733, United States
Village lane and trails open at all times, free. Visitor centre and building tours generally Thursday to Sunday in season, roughly 10 AM - 4 PM, with reduced or suspended hours in winter — confirm before travelling. Historic houses take overnight guests.