Weymouth Plantation

Weymouth Plantation is located on Plantersville Road on the Pee Dee River, among some of the finest preserved former rice plantations of coastal South Carolina, such as Chicora Wood, Exchange, Rosebank, and Arundel. The property is approximately twenty minutes to historic Georgetown’s shopping, dining, and Harborwalk.

Georgetown County Airport is a county-owned public use airport just 17 miles from the plantation with a 6,005’ runway. The nearest international airport with commercial flights is Myrtle Beach International Airport, approximately one hour from Weymouth.

From an ecological perspective, the plantation is in the Winyah Bay Focus Area, which is the third largest estuarine drainage area on the east coast. The 525,000 acres in the lower drainage of the four main rivers make this an important wildlife region particularly for migrating and wintering waterfowl. 

Plantersville Road: Today, the modest gated entrances of nearly a dozen plantations on Plantersville Road, many first deeded by the king in the early 1700’s, give a nod to an era gone by. What lies beyond those gates, past the sprawling limbs of the grand live oaks and the pink springtime show of the azaleas, is left only to the imagination for most. And the ones who have the opportunity to call these places home in modern days have displayed tremendous stewardship. Most have protected the plantations from development by donating conservation easements, ensuring that the landscape, vistas, and history are forever preserved. 

Georgetown: Located between Charleston and Myrtle Beach, the historic seaport of Georgetown is South Carolina’s third oldest city and has been an official port of entry since the 1730’s. It’s a charming town with wide, heavily canopied streets and over fifty sites on the National Historic Register in Georgetown’s Historic District. Many museums, galleries, restaurants, and shops occupy the old buildings. It’s a great launching spot for ecotourism and fishing charters. This port exported more rice than any other in the world.

Georgetown is on Winyah Bay, an estuary created by the confluence of the Waccamaw River, the Sampit River, the Black River, and the Pee Dee River which originates in the Appalachian Mountains in North Carolina. The Winyah Bay is well-known for its unspoiled coastlines and natural beauty. 

The lands on the rivers that feed into Winyah Bay have historically been some of the most coveted lands in the state. Those along the scenic Plantersville Road on the Pee Dee River were generally chosen as the home place of plantation owners who had multiple properties. 

Located within the humid subtropical region of the Atlantic Seaboard, the area features a mild climate and four distinct seasons.  Georgetown’s January low averages 35°F and July highs are around 91°F and average annual rainfall is about 54 inches.  Snow is rare.  

The property is protected from development by a series of conservation easements, including two with Wetlands America Trust, Inc (aka Ducks Unlimited) and one with the Lowcountry Open Land Trust. 

There is remaining unencumbered acreage which may be utilized for donation by a future owner.

Reserved rights allow for multiple additional single family residences equal to or less than 5,000 square feet and ancillary structures customary for plantation residences. 

The Lowcountry Open Land Trust’s mission is the “preservation of the irreplaceable natural and historically significant landscape of the Lowcountry, and the natural beauty of the Lowcountry, by protecting land, waters, and vistas of special scenic and aesthetic significance and adjacent to Beaufort, Colleton, Charleston, Berkeley, Dorchester, Georgetown, and Horry Counties.”

Main House: The main house is in an idyllic waterfront setting surrounded by live oaks and English gardens. Completed in 1998, the house is comprised of two original 1830s cabins that were masterfully moved and connected to make one dwelling. A master carpenter had the vision for turning the two old cabins into a cohesive and charming plantation house, connecting the historic structures with a bright dining/sitting room combo with vaulted ceilings and hand hewn beams. He also had a vision for the floating staircase up to the cupola. Historic materials were preferred as is evident by the old leaded glass, salvaged wood, and antique bricks. There are three bedrooms and two and a half bathrooms.  

Caretaker/Overseer’s House: Three bedroom ranch-style house

Guest Lodge: Two bedroom/one bath house for overflow 

Other Improvements: Office cabin, covered dock, several barns/sheds, kennels, fenced pasture

Based upon past years, the annual taxes are estimated at $3,311.23.

Fishing around Weymouth starts in the still, tannin stained ponds on the property for bream and bass and continues into the ditches and pockets on the river for bass, bream, catfish, and most all southern freshwater species. Although you can’t legally target them, sturgeon are a common sight on the Pee Dee, Black, and Waccamaw rivers just downstream of Weymouth. A short, fifteen minute boat run downriver to Georgetown and the Intracoastal Waterway’s southern turn will put fishermen in brackish, tidal water that supports an excellent “inshore slam” fishery of redfish, speckled trout, and flounder. Inshore anglers also target sheepshead, black drum, tripletail, tarpon, and all sorts of panfish. Nearshore boats chase Spanish and king mackerel, cobia, spadefish, and all worlds of bottoms fish from black bass to grouper. Conventional and fly fishing guides work out of nearby Georgetown Landing Marina, as do a number of offshore captains who run through the Winyah Bay jetties to blue water species like dolphin, tuna, wahoo, and billfish. A jump-off to all of this fishing action is within minutes of Weymouth by boat or car. 

Weymouth Plantation is blessed to have a broad range of habitat types that provide an enormous amount of quality outdoor hunting and fishing opportunities. The land includes large swaths of mature pine forests with an ecologically rich understory that is interspersed with interesting hardwood drains and wetland areas in addition to nearly a mile of frontage on both sides of the Pee Dee River, tidal marshes and levied wetland impoundments. Collectively, this creates a property that can be used all months of the year.

Waterfowl: Weymouth is, as much as anything, a place born and bound by water. Cypress tributaries and nutrient rich rivers surround the property, and with those come fowl and fish in great numbers. This area surrounding Winyah Bay is the 3rd largest estuarine drainage area on the east coast and one of the most important regions for migrating and wintering waterfowl. Today’s Pee Dee river basin is different than that of the 18th and 19th centuries because rice is not the dominant backdrop. That said, the rice landscapes left behind — old impounded fields, blackwater ditches, and marsh deltas — still teem with many species of ducks and fish. Migratory wood ducks, or summer ducks, are boosted by resident birds that nest in the local marshes and begin working the fields in early October. New waves show up in November, along with teal, mottled and black ducks, gadwall, ringnecks, and occasional widgeon. Pintails sometimes appear on ducky days. Scaup and redheads mix in with the ringnecks every now and then. The good duck hunting experienced along the Pee Dee River is heavily influenced by the fact there are several neighboring plantations managing for waterfowl creating a larger landscape that draws migrating birds. Suffice it to say that Weymouth’s moist-soil impoundments and the surrounding areas have plenty of ducks, and Weymouth could be managed more or less intensely according to an owner’s preference.

Quail: For nearly thirty years, Weymouth’s habitat has been managed with quail in mind and a few hundred acres of this property represent the most ideal upland piney woods for establishing a high-quality release quail program. For someone to have an exceptional quail program, the hardest part is finding or creating the habitat needed to accomplish such. The mature pine forests on Weymouth will provide an owner with instant gratification by allowing him to implement a very engaging quail program off the bat. 

Turkey & Deer: As is expected in the low country of South Carolina, turkey and deer are in abundance on Weymouth. The property has the perfect blend of pines, hardwoods, and open land that creates the edge and habitat needed to sustain strong populations every year. 

Dove: While not currently being planted, there has been a productive dove field on the property in the past and it would be very easy to get this reestablished.