Occoneechee State Park
Virginia State Park On Buggs Island Lake; Named For The Occaneechi People And Containing The Terraced Gardens And Ruins Of Nineteenth Century Occoneechee Plantation · Clarksville, Virginia
Twenty-seven hundred acres on the north shore of Buggs Island Lake at Clarksville, on ground that carries two very different histories stacked on top of each other. The park is named for the Occaneechi, who controlled the trading paths through this part of the Piedmont from a fortified island town at the confluence of the Dan and the Roanoke until an English force destroyed it in 1676 - the island itself is now under the reservoir. Nineteenth-century cotton and tobacco money then built Occoneechee Plantation on the bluff above, and what survives of that is the thing visitors actually walk through: terraced formal gardens stepping down toward the water, with the brick foundations and chimneys of the house that burned in 1898 standing among them. The rest is a lake park doing lake park things - a boat ramp and marina onto the largest reservoir in Virginia, a campground, cabins, a beach, horse trails and a good deal of quiet Southside shoreline.
1192 Occoneechee Park Road, Clarksville, Virginia, 23927, United States
Park open daily, generally 8 AM to dusk with seasonal variation. Visitor centre keeps shorter hours and is reduced in winter. Swimming beach and camp store are SEASONAL, mainly June to August. Camping, horse camping and cabins by reservation. Parking fee per vehicle plus a separate launch fee per boat and a seasonal beach charge. The garden terraces and house ruins are open whenever the park is.
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