Cross Mill Arts is a historic mill where music, art, and nature come together. An extended stay of focused study with a master of the craft — limited to twenty musicians, admitted by application.
Once, this mill ground grain for the Virginia piedmont. In the 1960s it was reborn as a home for the arts — and today it opens its doors to the musicians who keep it alive: a place to create, to gather, and to perform.
From the masterclass floor to the gallery stage — every Plug In weekend, the mill fills with sound.
You don’t come here to look at art. You stay inside it — the grounds, the gallery, the building itself.
The pond, the trails, and twenty-six quiet acres — the landscape is not the backdrop here. It’s part of the atmosphere.
The mill is an art gallery you inhabit — paintings along the loft stair, a stage framed by the original timber posts, and rooms where the collection lives with you rather than behind glass. The building itself is the largest piece in it.
See the mill & gallery
A Plug In is what we call the thing that happens here: one featured artist and twenty musicians, admitted by request, with the run of the mill for three days. Masterclass in the morning, small-ensemble rehearsal in the third-floor loft, and your own material on the gallery stage by Saturday night.
You plug in your instrument. You plug into the room. The room does the rest. Plug Ins run through the year, each built around a respected touring artist, artist-teacher, or songwriter.
Explore the Plug Ins
Cross Mill sits on King's Pond in Ashland — a historic grist mill transformed into a living center for the arts in the 1960s, and lovingly stewarded ever since. The gallery, the cottages, the trails, and the water are all part of the weekend.
Under two miles from I-95, twenty-one from Richmond, and seventy-five from Washington — remote enough to feel away, close enough to reach.
Explore the mill & groundsDates, featured artists, and the handful of onsite places go fast. Leave your email and we'll bring the mill to your inbox — no noise, just the good stuff.
Have a question about the mill? Get in touch.