South Carolina Department of Archives and History
National Register Properties in South Carolina

Ravenwood Plantation, Colleton County (S.C. Hwy. 64, Neyles vicinity)

Ravenwood01 Ravenwood02 Ravenwood03 Ravenwood04 Ravenwood05
Dike and Rice Field Rice Field
with cypress trees
Back Dike and
corner of field #2
Back Dike Back Dike
with Quarter Dike
Ravenwood06 Ravenwood07 Ravenwood08 Ravenwood09  
Dike and Canal Break in Dike Dike Corner Sketch Map

The historic ricefields and associated agricultural features of Ravenwood Plantation are significant as exceptionally intact examples of resources associated with the inland rice culture of the South Carolina lowcountry, which flourished from the earliest years of the Carolina colony until the early nineteenth century and in some areas until the mid-nineteenth century. While the usually larger-scale, more spectacularly successful, and certainly better-known tidal ricefields which produced the rice known as “Carolina Gold” have gained more attention, the inland ricefields are significant both in their own right and as a counterpoint to the tidal rice culture. Ravenwood is an approximately 325 acre tract containing historic inland ricefields and featuring intact and easily discernable canals, dikes, and a reserve. Two sets of three distinct fields each flank the east and west banks of Chessey Creek, with a reserve on the upper east side. These ricefields, whose period of significance dates from circa 1800 to circa 1860, are small and feature low, narrow dikes in comparison to the usually larger tidal ricefields, and are now in a tupelo cypress swamp. Listed in the National Register May 1, 1997.

View the complete text of the nomination form for this National Register Property.

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