Middleton Place – West Ashley, South Carolina

The Middleton Place House Museum, built in 1755, was originally used as a gentleman’s quarters. The brick building pictured here is just one part of Middleton Plantation’s original design.

Along with the gentleman’s quarters, there originally were two other buildings – the main house, and the ‘north flanker’ which was a library and conservatory. All of the buildings were burned during the Civil War, but the gentleman’s quarters received the least amount of damage and was restored.

The newly restored building survived the Great Earthquake of 1886, and was used as a private residence by Middleton descendants up until 1975 when it became a museum.

SCIWAY contributor Diane Yale-Peabody tells us that “the rice fields at Middleton Place are flooded at various times of the growing season to ensure proper germination and to keep down weeds. At other stages the fields are covered with inches-high seedlings, slender stalks waving and bowing under the weight of their rice heads or with brown stubble. Although the flood waters come from the retaining ponds and butterfly lakes on the plantation, the rice fields are very close to the Ashley River and look like they could be part of it.”