Southern Plantations

{ Drayton Hall }

While in Charleston we visited a couple of plantations which were absolutely stunning! The first one we visited was Drayton Hall. It is the oldest surviving example of Georgian Palladian architecture in the United States and one of the only pre - revolutionary houses that remains close to original condition today. The house was built for John Drayton begun in 1738 and completed in 1742.

The grounds were absolutely gorgeous! We also finally found out why the South is known as gater country. We had been looking for gaters wherever we went on the entire trip, we only found one that was randomly on the side of the road in the marsh. But after walking the grounds of Drayton Hall we found several little gaters in all of the pools all over the gardens, we were a little nervous of where the mama was hiding, but we found plenty of little babies, fascinating!




{ Middleton Place }


Next we made our way to Middleton Place, where a huge lunch buffet was waiting for us. It had all the traditional southern favorites, fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, corn bread, pulled pork and for dessert, southern pecan pie, I love southern cookin!









After we were completely stuffed with all the southern fixins we could ever want, it was time to tour the grounds of Middleton Place. They are ginormous, lush and spectacular! Below is an aerial view of the property to help demonstrate my point, it is just hard to describe it in words.

John Williams, an early South Carolina planter, probably began building Middleton Place in the late 1730s. His son-in-law Henry Middleton (1717–1784), who later served as President of the First Continental Congress , completed the house's main section and its north and south flankers, and began work on the elaborate gardens. Middleton's son, Arthur Middleton (1742–1787), a signer of The Declaration of Independence was born at Middleton Place, and resided at the plantation in the last years of his life.































Same story here as at Drayton Hall, Crocks in every single pool! Except here at Middleton Place, they were the big, scary ones!





I loved our field trips to these fabulous pieces of Southern history, I found their architecture and grounds just fantastic, I am now obsessed with anything Southern.