Day tripping - Hopsewee Plantation

Hopsewee Plantation, SC   

A perfect day trip up the coast from Charleston, the historic rice plantation property of Hopsewee Plantation has a tea room serving a tasty lunch or afternoon tea. I'd enjoyed the tea room before but for the first time paid the fee and took the house tour.

The owners live in the home so it has a warm and friendlier feeling than most historic home tours. The owners are active participants in the running of the property and restaurant. We had an informative tour and were allowed to explore the basement and attic although I wasn't able to take pictures inside the building.

Hopsewee Plantation: Built circa 1740, some 40 years before the American Revolutionary War, Hopsewee Plantation was one of the South's major rice plantations and the birthplace of Thomas Lynch, Jr., one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

Jiggety Joggety

Joggling Board, Hopsewee Plantation, SC 

I haven't added to my joggling board sightings recently so here are a couple of shots to start the morning. This joggling board is on the grounds of Hopsewee Plantation up the coast from Charleston on the way to Georgetown.

A joggling or jostling board is a long, pliable board that is supported on each end by wooden stands. The board is springy and a person sitting on it can easily bounce up and down. Sources differ on the origination; its usage in the Lowcountry of South Carolina around Charleston in the early 19th century is however rather well-documented. Traditionally, it is painted Charleston green. The joggling board's popularity has slowly been coming back, mostly as decorations on lawns and front porches.

How about a picture of the picture?

Hopsewee Plantation, Georgetown, S.C.

I was enjoying my tomato pie and tater salad in the Hopsewee Plantation Tea Room last weekend when I spotted the painting below on the wall. I'm not sure what year it was done but I walked around to the river side to try to get the view the artist had in mind when he/she painted it. I'd need to be on a boat to get the matching view but it is pretty close. They have changed the roof color and trimmed the azaleas but it has been beautifully maintained.

Hopsewee Plantation: The house, still a private residence, is a typical low country rice plantation dwelling of the early eighteenth century with four rooms opening into a wide center hall on each floor, a full brick cellar and attic rooms. The house has a lovely staircase and there is hand carved molding in each room and random width heart pine floors are almost one and one half inches thick. Constructed on a brick foundation which is covered by scored tabby, the house is built of black cypress, which probably accounts for the fact that it is basically the same house the Lynches built 40 years before the Revolutionary War. It is furnished in eighteenth and nineteenth century furniture.

 

Lowcountry essentials

Hopsewee Plantation, S.C.

What a nice way to present the necessities after all the rain we've had in the lowcountry lately. They breed mosquitoes that can be mistaken for attack hummingbirds at Hopsewee Plantation. Ouchie!

Hopsewee Plantation - Tea Room

Hopsewee Plantation, S.C.

What have I been thinking? They serve a proper afternoon tea at Hopsewee Plantation and I've never been there?  I remember trying once but the gate was closed and sometimes they have special events so best give a call before you head up the coast towards Georgetown. I made it in yesterday and dodged flocks of  mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds to get these pictures and it was worth it. Seriously. Take bug spray.

I didn't take the formal house tour but enjoyed lunch in the tea shop (below). Check out the menus here. I'd like to go back with enough time to explore the property.