Category: Museum  |  Rating :

eReview: Belle Grove Plantation

Location: Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley

Review by R MUSTO

Belle Grove Plantation

If you are on interested in seeing a Southern plantation, stop at Belle Grove, it is situated near the Great Wagon Road in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, located off I-81 Exit 302, one mile south of Middletown, Virginia on U.S. Route 11. It is an 18th century grain and livestock farm. The limestone home was completed in 1797 for Major Isaac Hite and his wife Nelly, sister of President James Madison. The property originally was a 7,500 acre plantation; today the home is a Historic Site of the National Trust for Historic Preservation. The estate is made up of 283 acres of beautiful laws and pastures.

Visitors receive a guided tour of the home and take a self-guided tour of the plantation grounds. As visitors tour the house they will step back in time to the days of the mid 1800s. The self-guided tour of the buildings and grounds of the plantation include the ice house, the agricultural fields, the old hall, the dairy, the smoke house, the blacksmiths shop, the demonstration garden and slave cemetery. The grounds of Belle Grove also hold the memories of the Battle of Cedar Creek; the battle was fought on the grounds and the surrounding area on October 19, 1864.

Belle Grove has several activities scheduled during the year for visitors. In July of this year the 145th Anniversary of the Battle of First Manassas Re-enactment took place on the plantation grounds and in October Belle Grove hosts the Battle Cedar Creek Re-enactment and Living History Weekend.

It takes about two hours to tour the plantation, for more information on Belle Grove visit the website: www.bellegrove.org. For more information on Cedar Creek Battlefield (across Route 11 from Belle Grove) www.cedarcreekbattlefield.org.

Belle Grove Phone: 540.869.2028