Magnolia Plantation and Gardens (Charleston, South Carolina)

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
U.S. Historic district
Plantation home at Magnolia Plantation
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Nearest city	Charleston, South Carolina
Coordinates	32°52′35″N 80°05′01″W / 32.87651°N 80.08351°W / 32.87651; -80.08351
Area	390 acres (160 ha)
Built	1850
NRHP reference No.	72001198[1]
Added to NRHP	December 11, 1972

Magnolia Plantation and Gardens (464 acres, 187.77 hectares) is a historic house with gardens located on the Ashley River at 3550 Ashley River Road west of Ashley, Charleston County, South Carolina.^[2][3] It is one of the oldest plantations in the South, and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Magnolia Plantation is located near Charleston and directly across the Ashley River from North Charleston. The house and gardens are open daily; an admission fee is charged.

The plantation dates to 1679, when Thomas and Ann Drayton (née Anna Fox) built a house and small formal garden on the site. The plantation still remains under the control of the Drayton family after 15 generations.^{[citation needed]} Some of the enslaved people who were forced to work at the house were brought by the Draytons from Barbados in the 1670s.^[4] The historic Drayton Hall was built in 1738 by enslaved laborers for John Drayton, grandfather of judge John Drayton II, on an adjoining property.

Magnolia was originally a rice plantation, with extensive earthworks of dams and dikes built in fields along the river for irrigating land for rice cultivation. African enslaved people from rice-growing regions created the works. As time went on, these enslaved people developed a creolized Gullah language and vibrant culture, strongly influenced by their West African cultures.^[4] They have retained many combined cultural elements from West Africa to this day in what is known as the Gullah Heritage Corridor of the Lowcountry and Sea Islands of the Carolinas and Georgia.