A 1703 manor house and a slave cabin both still stand on this Southern Maryland river bluff

It’s 94 acres of living, breathing American history

Ninety-four acres above the Patuxent River hold more than 300 years of American life. A 1703 manor house still stands.

So does a slave cabin from the 1830s. So do fields, gardens, trails, a wharf, and more than 20 historic buildings spread across rolling Southern Maryland land.

Historic Sotterley is a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO Site of Memory, and it tells the full story of everyone who lived here, not just the families who held the deed.

Maryland’s only open Tidewater plantation has deep roots

Sotterley started small. James Bowles broke ground on a two-room home in 1703, and over the following two centuries, governors, a physician, and a string of wealthy families added to it, shaped it, and passed it on.

The whole time, a community of enslaved people built the structures, worked the land, and kept the place running.

The site is now a nonprofit museum, and it’s the only Tidewater plantation in Maryland open to the public with a full visitor program.

Step inside the 1703 Manor House on a guided tour

The Manor House is where most people start. You can’t walk in on your own.

A trained docent takes you through, and that’s worth the structure because guides share stories the rooms alone can’t tell. The oldest section dates to 1703, and you can feel the age in the proportions.

The dining room is set the way it would have been long ago, with china, crystal and silver laid out on the table. The families who sat there come into focus fast.

A cypress post from 1703 still holds up part of this house

One detail stops people in their tracks. A cypress post sunk into the ground in 1703 is still there, still part of the frame, more than 320 years later.

That kind of survival is part of why the federal government designated Sotterley a National Historic Landmark. As you move through the house, the architecture shifts room by room.

Wings and additions went up across the centuries, and you can see the changes in the proportions, the trim work and the ceiling heights. The long, low exterior runs nine bays wide with wide clapboard siding.

One of the only surviving 1830s slave cabins in the country

One original slave cabin from the 1830s stands on the grounds, and it is one of the few of its kind left anywhere in the country.

The exhibit inside is dedicated to Agnes Kane Callum, a descendant and historian who worked to preserve this history. Both the guided and self-guided tours include the cabin and the lives of the people held here.

This is not a side stop. It sits at the center of what Sotterley has chosen to be, a place of full remembrance.

The Colonial Revival Garden is worth a slow walk through

Up on a knoll near the Manor House, the garden gives you a reason to stop moving and just look around.

It went in during the early 1900s restoration of the property, and in season, it fills with peonies and a mix of herbs and flowering plants. Visitors bring it up often when they talk about what they liked.

It is not a grand formal garden on any grand scale.

It is quiet and easy to walk, and it sits in good contrast to the weight of everything else on the grounds.

Six miles of trails wind through woods, fields and river bluffs

The trail network covers about six miles of natural-surface paths. They take you through forest, along field edges, and up onto the bluff above the Patuxent River.

When you get to the high ground, the river opens up wide in front of you.

The land rolls down toward the water through several different habitats, and the variety keeps the walk from feeling like one long stretch of the same thing.

You can cover a short loop or string together longer sections depending on how much time you have.

Enjoy bird watching with Audubon Society guides

The mix of forests, hedgerows, meadows, fields and shoreline draws a wide range of birds, and Sotterley has leaned into that. You can join organized bird walks with the St. Mary’s County Audubon Society.

If you go on your own, the garden and lower fields are good places to watch for open-country species.

The habitat variety is what makes this land worth a slow walk even for people who don’t usually pay much attention to birds.

The outbuildings show how a Chesapeake plantation actually ran

Scattered across the grounds, the outbuildings make the operation concrete in a way that house tours sometimes don’t.

There’s a customs warehouse, a smokehouse, a corn crib, a brick necessary and a plantation schoolhouse. Each one had a function, and together they show you how a working Chesapeake plantation organized daily life.

They sit among the fields and gardens in the same places they’ve stood for generations, and walking among them gives you a better sense of the scale of the place than any single room could.

The Visitor Center is the right place to start your day

When you pull in, head to the Visitor Center first.

It’s your orientation point, and the museum shop there carries books, colonial toys, jewelry and local crafts worth a look. Exhibits inside cover the site’s history programs, which have picked up awards over the years.

The center is open during the regular season only, so if you’re planning a visit outside the warmer months, check ahead. It sets up the rest of the grounds well and gives you a map before you head out.

Plan your visit: what to buy, what’s free and when to go

A Grounds Pass gets you out on the trails and around the outbuildings at a low cost. Children under six get in free.

The Manor House takes a separate guided tour, and those run seasonally, roughly May through October. Parking is free on site, and you can bring a picnic and eat on the grounds.

The combination of a house tour, a cabin visit and a long trail walk can fill most of a day, so give yourself more time than you think you need.

Visit Historic Sotterley in Hollywood, Maryland

To see it for yourself, head to 44300 Sotterley Lane in Hollywood, Maryland.

The site sits within easy driving distance of the Solomons area and other Southern Maryland destinations, so you can pair it with a fuller trip through the region.

Hours and tour times change by season, and Manor House tours don’t run year-round, so check the official website before you go to make sure you arrive on the right day and at the right time.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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