Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
extensively in WWII. You can tour the ship's flight deck, bridge and ready rooms and get
a glimpse of what life was like for its sailors. Also on site are a small museum, submar-
ine, naval destroyer, Coast Guard cutter and a re-created 'fire base' from Vietnam. You
can also catch the Fort Sumter boat tour from here.
Boone Hall Plantation
HISTORIC BUILDING
( 843-884-4371;
www.boonehallplantation.com
; 1235 Long Point Rd; adult/child $20/10;
8:30am-6:30pm Mon-Sat, noon-5pm Sun early Mar-Aug, shorter hours Sep-Feb, closed Jan)
Just 11
miles from downtown Charleston on Hwy 17N, Boone Hall Plantation is famous for its
magical Avenue of Oaks, planted by Thomas Boone in 1743. Boone Hall is still a work-
ing plantation, though strawberries, tomatoes and Christmas trees long ago replaced cot-
ton as the primary crop. The main house, built in 1936, is the fourth house on the site.
The most compelling buildings are the Slave Street cabins, built between 1790 and 1810
and now lined with exhibits.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Ashley River Plantations
Only a 20-minute drive northwest from Charleston, there are three spectacular planta-
tions. You'll be hard-pressed for time to visit all three in one outing, but you could
squeeze in two (allow at least a couple of hours for each). Ashley River Rd is also known
as SC 61, which can be reached from downtown Charleston via Hwy 17.
Sights
Middleton Place
HISTORIC BUILDING, GARDENS
( 843-556-6020;
www.middletonplace.org
; 4300 Ashley River Rd; gardens adult/child $28/10,
house museum tour adult & child extra $15; 9am-5pm)
Designed in 1741, this plantation's
vast gardens are the oldest in the US. One hundred slaves spent a decade terracing the
land and digging the precise geometric canals for the owner, wealthy South Carolina
politician Henry Middleton. The bewitching grounds are a mix of classic formal French
gardens and romantic woodland, bounded by flooded rice paddies and rare-breed farm
animals. Union soldiers burned the main house in 1865; a 1755 guest wing, now housing
the
house museum
, still stands.
