The garden of Middleton Place is a unique survival; not just because it is the earliest surviving landscape garden in North America, but because it seems to have been the earliest landscape garden to have been created in North America. It was the centerpiece of a great plantation located 14 miles northwest of Charleston, South Carolina. The plantation's house was probably built in the 1730s and along with 200 acres of land, was part of the dowry that Mary Williams brought to Henry Middleton when they married in 1741. Henry and Mary immediately moved to their plantation, which they named Middleton Place, rather than The Oaks, where Henry had been living.
It is difficult to believe that the designer of Middleton Place's garden was unfamiliar with the garden at Studley Royal. This is widely recognized as the most beautiful formal watergarden in England and was created by John Aislabie between 1722 and his death in 1742. Middleton Place's twin butterfly lakes could almost have been designed by Aislabie. Of course, there were probably more English gardens in the style of Studly Royal, it is just that most of them were transformed into informal gardens during the latter half of the eighteenth century. The 1740's were a decade of transition in the English landscape style. The garden of Middleton Place was in the latest style when it was begun in 1741, but by the time that the construction was completed a decade later, it was already old fashioned. This makes its survival especially important, because only a few gardens in this style have survived in England.
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