Chippokes State Park
Virginia State Park, Formerly Chippokes Plantation State Park; Land Continuously Farmed Since 1619, With An 1854 Mansion And The Chippokes Farm And Forestry Museum · Surry, Virginia
Farmland on the south bank of the James, opposite Jamestown, that has been worked continuously since 1619 - which is very likely the longest unbroken run of any farm in the United States. That is the fact that makes this park different from every other in the system. The land was patented to Captain William Powell in the first years of the colony, it has been cropped every year since through every war and every change of ownership, and it is still farmed today: there are working fields inside the park boundary, not a reconstruction of fields. The park grew around them. There is an 1854 mansion with formal gardens above the river, the Farm and Forestry Museum with one of the better agricultural collections in the state, a beach on the James where fossils wash out of the bank, and a swimming pool and campground for the summer. Virginia removed "Plantation" from the name in recent years, which matters for anyone searching older maps, and the park has been steadily rewriting its interpretation to deal properly with the enslaved people who did most of those four hundred years of work.
695 Chippokes Park Road, Surry, Virginia, 23883, United States
Park open daily, generally 8 AM to dusk with shorter winter gate hours. The 1854 mansion is TOUR ONLY on a reduced seasonal schedule - check before travelling for it. Farm and Forestry Museum, swimming pool and camp store are seasonal. Camping and cabins by reservation. Parking fee per vehicle, separate mansion tour and pool charges. NOTE: the park was renamed from Chippokes Plantation State Park, so older listings differ.
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