Ashley River Plantations

The three Ashley River Plantations of Drayton Hall, Magnolia Plantation and Middleton Place north of Charleston "provide a composite picture of grandeur the Ashley River barons lavished upon themselves," wrote Hank Leifermann in his guide South Carolina.

Drayton Hall [left] is a Palladian style home [right] built between 1738 and 1742 by Dr. John Drayton, a wealthy rice and indigo planter. John was the son of Thomas Drayton, who built Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.

About 10 miles from downtown Charleston, Drayton Hall is listed on both the National Register of Historic Places and as a National Historic Landmark.

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens, the first of the Drayton family homes in the area, was destroyed during the Civil War; however, the 50-acre lawn remains and is a spatula display of over 200 species of azaleas and 900 camellias.

The gardens were first planted in the 1840s, and have been open to the public since the 1870s. Drayton and Magnolia Garden hosted John J. Audubon, and today the adjoining blackwater swamp is the site of the 60-acre Audubon Swamp Garden.

Middleton Place is the nation's oldest landscape garden, and was established by Henry Middleton in 1740. The plantation house was burned during the Civil War. The guest wing, built in 1755, however, remains and is open for public tour.

The primary feature of Middleton place are its butterfly ponds and gardens, which provide year-round color with azaleas, camellias, kalmias, magnolias, crepe myrtle and roses.

Pea hens, cows and sheep graze the front lawn, and out buildings house yarn spinning and black switching. An excellent restaurant also is operated on the estate.

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Cooper River Plantations

Dean Hall was settled by the Scottish Nesbetts of Dean, and was sold to William Carson in 1821.

In 1909, Dean Hall was sold to Benjamin Kittridge, who began raising azaleas and camellias in and near the cypress and tupelo swamps on the grounds. Today, the property is known as Cypress Gardens.

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Hobcaw Barony

Waccamaw Neck lies between the Waccamaw River and the Atlantic Ocean and is the site of a number of rice and indigo plantations that developed as the result of a grant from King George II, the largest having been assigned to Lord Carteret.

Carteret was uninterested in plantation life, and during the 1800s his barony was divided and sold into 10 individual plantations. However, in 1905 the legendary financier Bernard Baruch, a native of Camden SC, reassembled the tract in a single 17,500-acre estate, which named Hobcaw Barony. Hobcaw is an Indian word meaning "between the waters."

Baruch initially hunted the property from a simple cabin, but built a mansion in 1931. His daughter, Belle, built her own mansion on the property in 1936.

Today Barony is jointly administered by the Belle W. Baruch Foundation (which owns the property), Clemson University and the University of South Carolina.

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Brookgreen Gardens

Archer and Anna Hyatt Huntington purchased 6,600 acres and founded Brookgreen Gardens in 1931 to preserve the area's flora and fauna, and to display objects of art within that natural setting.

Today, Brookgreen Gardens is a National Historic Landmark with "the most significant collection of figurative sculpture in an outdoor setting by American artists in the world." The Gardens also include the only zoo accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums on the coast of the Carolinas.

The gardens display 800 works of art among 2,000 plant species, art deco ponds and marshes along the Waccamaw River.

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