Albemarle Barracks was a prisoner-of-war camp for British prisoners during the American Revolutionary War.
Following Gen. John Burgoyne's defeat at the Battle of Saratoga, in 1777, several thousand British and German (Hessian and Brunswickian) troops, of what came to be known as the Convention Army, were marched to Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The remaining soldiers (some 2,000 British, upwards of 1,900 German, and roughly 300 women and children) marched south in late 1778 - arriving at the site (near Ivy Creek) in January, 1779.
The camp was never adequately provisioned, and yet the prisoners did manage to make something of the site, including building a theater.
Note: Though the marker was almost totally obscured by the twin boxwoods growing on either side, in 2006, as of November 2010, it could easily be seen from the road.