Berkeley Plantation, Williamsburg
Berkeley plantation was settled on 4th December 1619, when early settlers from England landed at Berkeley and observed the first official Thanksgiving in America, offering thanks for their safe arrival and decreeing that thenceforth the day should be honored annually.
The present house dates from 1726 and occupies an attractively landscaped position on a hill overlooking the James River. It is the oldest three-story brick house in Virginia and the first to be built with a pediment roof.
Berkeley is one of the finest of all the Virginia plantations with ten acres (four hectares) of formal terraced boxwood gardens and lawn extending for a quarter-mile (half-kilometer) from the front of the house to the James River.
Day Trip Suggestion
On the way to Berkley Plantation stop off at Sherwood Forest Plantation, just off Route 5 west, home to former President John Tyler and featuring one of the longest frame houses in America.
Leave Berkley on Route 5 west to Shirley Plantation, Virginia's oldest, containing many seventeenth century portraits, silver, furniture and possessions of the present family whose ancestors built the house in 1660.
Hotel Discounts in Williamsburg, Virginia
