Before the Civil War, rice, not cotton, was “king” for Low Country South Carolina planters. Middleton Place endures as a reminder of the wealth generated by rice, as well as of the water access and hydro-engineering skills crucial to rice production. Today, it ranks not only in the top tier of southern gardens, but indeed of all North American designed landscapes. This is achieved, moreover, with only a flanker to the original Middleton great house having survived the nineteenth century. Visited by the Society during our 1992 Charleston annual meeting, the gardens at Middleton Place have their origins in the 1740s, though many years were required before the gardens and grounds reached their Revolutionary era peak.
The Middleton name has been linked to this property since the 1741 marriage of Henry Middleton to plantation heiress Mary Williams. Various sources credit Dezallier d’Argenville’s The Theory and Practice of Gardening (French translated into English) as an initial inspiration for Henry and Mary Middleton. Aided by a professional English gardener, and through the labors of many enslaved people, the work at Middleton Place reflected a greater French influence in its geometric formality than revealing any impact from the grand-scale naturalistic landscapes then being installed in Great Britain. The influence of d’Argenville (and indirectly André Le Nôtre) is perhaps best seen in the massing of parterres of varying designs northwest of the house site. While many southern gardens benefit from fountains, streams, and pools, Middleton Place is essentially defined by water, both naturally flowing or impounded in various forms. This is demonstrated vividly in the north gardens area, which has a long rectilinear “Reflection Pool” along the west, an irregularly shaped “Azalea Pool” to the north, and a large water-filled rice field along the east with the Ashley River further beyond. The Middleton Place landscape is arguably best known, however, for the sloped, curved terraces and butterfly lakes set on axis east of the original three-story main house, these being separated by a thin strip of land from the rice field pond to the north and the rice mill pond to the south.
We owe much to later Middleton generations for the survival of these finely crafted grounds. Early on, they began putting in camellias (for which the gardens are now especially well known), azaleas, and other plants new to North America which would add to the property’s fame and began to tip the gardens more towards its present romantic era feel, aided by its many Spanish moss bedecked live oaks. In particular, in the early twentieth century Henry’s descendant J. J. Pringle Smith, and most especially his wife Heningham Ellett, were responsible for bringing Middleton Place to the level seen today. In turn, their grandson and heir, Charles Duell has led the way towards a focus on the Middleton Place African American story, along with protecting the National Historic Landmark’s viewscape and long-term sustainability.
For more details, visit: https://www.middletonplace.org/
Alan Ward photographs: https://www.tclf.org/sites/default/files/2024-01/MiddletonPlace_1996_2023-01.02.2024.pdf
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