City Directories and History: Medway, built in 1686, only sixteen years after the founding of the colony, and at the time of the nomination was considered the oldest house in South Carolina of record, is in plan and situation typical of the plantation houses to be built in the lowcountry for the next
Photographer C.O. Greene 1940 – Medway Plantation, Pine Grove, Berkeley County
hundred years. (Note: research since the time of nomination has established that the core of the present house at Medway Plantation was built in 1704-1705 by Edward and Elizabeth Hyrne. The house assumed its present arrangement by 1875.) Originating at Medway was the Janus-like scheme, which provides for the house facing both ways with both a river prospect and a landside entrance, a situation common to the region. The house is thought to have been built by Jan Van Arrsens, Seigneur de Weirnhoudt, who led a small company of Hollanders to Carolina. Dutch architecture is most obvious in the stepped gables of the original house, and the influence of Van Arrsen’s architecture has kept the house looking as though it had as good a right to be standing over a canal in the low countries of Holland as beside rice fields in the low-country of Carolina. The second story added to the original building copied its stepped gables. In the 19th century Medway enjoyed a sound economic mixture of agriculture and industry by making rice while the weather was hot and brick when it was cold. Brick making was so successful that Medway owner Peter Gaillard Stoney sent thousands of bricks down for the building of Fort Sumter. Additionally, after World War II, the “Medway Plan” was developed here for American cities to adopt and help rehabilitate French towns. Several graves in a small cemetery are also located on the property. Listed in the National Register July 16, 1970. [Courtesy of the SC Dept. of Archives and History]
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R&R HISTORY LINK: A TIME CAPSULE – PINOPOLIS COOKBOOK FROM ST JOHN
R&R HISTORY LINK: NATIONAL REGISTER – IMAGE(S)
R&R HISTORY LINK: TEXT – NATIONAL REGISTER NOMINATION
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