Belle Grove Plantation

[L Verge]

You may be right because there was a fairly wealthy man named Champe Thornton who lived in Port Royal, I think.

I have spent part of the day thinking about how we could pile at least our volunteers on a bus and have a luncheon at Belle Grove. We could end the tour at Ingleside Winery, which has (or had when I visited) a very nice tasting room. The winery is on land that was once the property of the Jett (as in Willie) family. I believe the home is still there, but we didn't see it while on tour -- unless it was the very nice "Tara look-alike" that we could see at the end of a long driveway off the main road.

That area of the Northern Neck of Virginia is so alive with history. Monroe's home is in nearby Colonial Beach, Washington's birthplace at Pope's Creek Plantation (once called Wakefield) is in the area, and right down the road from that is Stratford Hall, birthplace of Robert E. Lee. The village of Port Royal is a charmer right across the river from Belle Grove. And, Fredericksburg, Virginia, is a history and shopping mecca off Route 17. Go in the opposite direction on Route 17, and you can visit Yorktown, Williamsburg, and Jamestown.